The Dish on Today's (Nonbinding) Prop 8 Resolution

The fate of Prop 8 may be squarely in the Supreme Court’s hands right now, but that hasn’t stopped the Legislature from diving into the issue.

San Francisco Democratic Sen. Mark Leno introduced a five-page resolution today expressing the Senate’s opposition to the gay marriage ban because “it is an improper revision, not an amendment, of the California Constitution.” Constitutional revisions, as we all were reminded after Election Night, must be enacted through a legislative process, not the ballot box.

The resolution is nonbinding. It doesn’t urge the court to do anything about the initiative. And given that the resolution’s backers have already signed on to an amicus brief challenging Prop 8 -– and spoken out against it vociferously -– reporters questioned Leno several times why the resolution is even necessary (unless you look forward to another round of politically and emotionally charged legislative hearings on gay marriage, which will undoubtedly end with Democrats passing the resolution and Republicans complaining about liberal legislators dissing state voters).

See what the point is after the jump.

“It’s important for us to put ourselves on record, that we not remain silent,” Leno said.

Or, as Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D – San Francisco, said: “If the proponents of Prop 8 can dish it out, we certainly, I think, have the prerogative and the duty to give them a little dish back.”

That, of course, led Prop 8 supporters to re-dish their outrage.

“You’d think that these legislators would be focused on resolving the budget deficit or improving the economy,” Ron Prentice, chairman of the Yes on 8 campaign, said in a prepared statement. “Instead, they seem more interested in grandstanding for the cameras and thumbing their noses at voters who enacted Proposition 8 by a nearly 600,000 vote margin.”

—  Cheryl Miller