It is the club’s position that we ask you to vote NO on Associate Justice Carol Corrigan’s retention to the California Supreme Court.
Here is why this is important:
In 2000, Prop 22 passed defining marriage in California as between one man and one woman.
In 2006, thanks to the leadership and boldness of then-Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom and the LGBT community that ended up in the courts. A trial court threw out the gender requirements, and then a series of cases went to the California Supreme Court which condensed and approved to be heard in what they called “In re Marriage Cases.” In a 4-3 ruling, Carol Corrigan issued a dissent saying she supported marriage equality, but that it should be decided by proposition.
Nope, not good enough Justice Corrigan.
The 4-3 decision temporarily legalized marriage equality in California (no thanks to Justice Corrigan) and 18,000 couples got married.
Then, Prop 8 happened.
Justice Corrigan ruled in favor of sustaining Prop 8 as the law of the land in Strauss v. Horton.
That’s strike 2, Justice Corrigan.
Then, someone wrongfully outed her as a member of the LGBT community. Now… that’s a messed up thing to do to anyone. Shame on whoever did that.
Regardless, and irrespective of that fact, she voted twice against marriage equality and she took a misguided position in the second case which eventually took the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn in 2015.
As a result of her legal rulings against the civil rights of the LGBT community — her own community — I believe this is cause to not retain her as an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court.
Sadly, if Justice Corrigan is retained, she will be re-elected to another 12-year term. That means she won’t be back up for a retention election until 2030!
If she is defeated, it is likely that our new Governor will appoint a successor.