California's Proposition 8: The Civil Rights Movement

There have been several times within American politics where the rights of groups of people have been fought over. These types of fights have been spread over the course of America’s history the most well known being the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. One of the most recent of these fights was the repeal of California’s Proposition 8, originally titled the “California Marriage Protection Act,” which only affected same-sex couples. Proposition 8 was a proposal for an amendment addition to the California constitution stating “only marriage between a man and a women is valid or recognized in California,” creating controversy between groups. The California Supreme Court saw that “limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples,” was violating …show more content…
The interest groups in this case were on either side of Proposition 8 and they were often seen as people being too liberal or too conservative on the rights of same-sex couples. The main informal actor that was for Proposition 8 was religious organizations which contributed funds assisting in altering the position that the amendment stood for. The view of these interest groups is often as “less tolerant of views that clash with their own,” as it could be possible for their lifestyle to be affected. Their solution to the possibility of tarnish to their ideals was to become political actors in America to fight their beliefs. The interest groups that supported the “California Marriage Protection” being obstructed saw the purpose of the ideology of everyone having a right to marry the person they want and it was being taken away after being given. The purpose of why these people fought so hard for the nation to see things for their sides could be multiple reasons for the supporters of Proposition 8 it could be because of its for their party or religious reason. The opponents of the Proposition 8 though could be for party support, personal reasons, or maybe it could have the hippest to support for some. The reasons that people fight for their opinion has increasingly parted from their personal opinion to their …show more content…
The action of trying to remove rights already given to a class of people with no rational cause was seen as unjust. The repeal of Proposition 8 was one of the first steps to gaining more equal rights for all types of people in the United States. The future of rights for citizens seems to be heading in a more liberal direction where the sexuality of a person does not matter on the type of rights that they have. Americans in the future may have a time where conservative ideals can coexist smoothly with liberal thoughts to the point where every Americans no matter race, sexuality, or religion will affect their rights. America was build for people to escape persecution and to have opportunities to transform themselves, but if their rights are equal than their way to the American dream is even more difficult. The American people should not be fighting for one type of group of people’s rights and trying crushing another group of people rights. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment allows for the federal government to change laws and issues in states if they target a group or class of people. Proposition 8 did just that by stating the right of marriage should only be to opposite-sex couples completely cut off same-sex couples who had already been given the right and