California
Editorial: California voters should protect same-sex marriage from U.S. Supreme Court assault
No one, regardless of sexual orientation, should be deprived of the ability to marry the person they love.
That might seem like a fundamental and bedrock idea, but for California and the nation, it’s relatively new. And, unfortunately, there is no assurance the U.S. Supreme Court will remain on board.
That’s why voters in California’s Nov. 5 election must pass Proposition 3, which would update the state Constitution to match the mores of the 21st century.
The growth in national public support and legal protections for gay marriage over the past quarter century has been monumental.
Just 24 years ago, 62% of state voters approved Proposition 22, which affirmed in state law that only marriage between a man and a woman would be valid or recognized in California.
That was upended in May 2008, when the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had a fundamental right under the state Constitution to marry.
But later that year, 52% of California voters supported an initiative, Proposition 8, that added a ban on same-sex marriage to the state Constitution.
That was overturned with U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 2013 and 2015 that cleared the way for gay marriage in California and established a federal constitutional right nationwide.
Regrettably, that might not be the final word. The narrow 5-4 ruling in 2015 could be in danger with the conservative shift of the high court. Of the five justices in the majority nine years ago, only two, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, remain on the court today.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who today is considered one of the more moderate members of the court, dissented in the 2015 ruling. And, in the court’s 2022 ruling overturning constitutional protections for abortion rights, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion arguing that gay rights should also be subject to state-by-state review.
Thus, there is no guarantee that gay-marriage protections would survive review of the current U.S. Supreme Court any better than abortion rights did. Once again, a key issue of personal liberty could be relegated to each state to decide.
Making matters worse, right now in California, the 2008 wording of Proposition 8, even though struck down by the courts, remains in the state Constitution. Proposition 3 would fix that, repealing Proposition 8 and recognizing the fundamental right to marry, regardless of race or sex.
Proposition 3 would ensure California’s Constitution keeps up with changing public sentiment. In 2000, 38% of likely voters surveyed by the Public Policy Institute of California said they supported gay marriage. By last year that support had doubled, to 75%.
In polling this year for the Los Angeles Times, 71% of adults nationwide and 72% of Californians said that the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all states should be left intact.
There’s no guarantee that will happen. Californians should inoculate the state against a federal reversal of same-sex marriage rights by passing Proposition 3.
Originally Published:
California
2 dead, 3 injured in shooting in Louisville’s California neighborhood
USA epidemic of gun violence and mass killings
Find out about the growing problem of gun violence and mass killings in the USA and learn how the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) categorizes different types of gun violence.
Two men are dead and three others injured in a mass shooting in the California neighborhood Saturday night, Louisville Metro Police said.
Second Division officers initially found four men with gunshot wounds in the 2200 block of Garland Avenue when they arrived at 7:30 p.m., LMPD spokesperson John Bradley said in a statement.
Two men were pronounced dead at the scene, while the other two were taken to the University of Louisville Hospital for treatment. As of Sunday, one man was in “critical but stable condition,” while the other was in stable condition, Bradley said.
A fifth man was later found in the area, Bradley said Sunday. He was also taken to UofL Hospital, but his condition was unknown.
Police had not located a suspect Saturday night. LMPD’s homicide unit is investigating, Bradley said. Anyone with information about the shooting could call LMPD’s anonymous tip line at 502-574-5673.
The two men who died have not yet been identified.
Reach reporter Leo Bertucci at lbertucci@gannett.com or @leober2chee on X, formerly known as Twitter
This story has been updated to add video.
California
California man beheaded his 1-year-old son with a knife, authorities say
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A man has been arrested on suspicion of beheading his 1-year-old son, Northern California authorities said.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday that deputies responding to an early morning family disturbance call found a woman outside a home who told deputies that her husband Andrey Demskiy, 28, assaulted her and her mother.
Deputies forced their way into the house in northern Sacramento County when they learned Demskiy was inside with the boy. As they took him into custody, they found a “severed child’s head” in the bedroom where Demskiy was detained.
Detectives said Demskiy used a knife to behead his son after his wife and mother-in-law left the house, according to the statement. He was in custody and ineligible for bail, and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.
The sheriff’s department and the county public defenders office did not respond to emails seeking information on whether Demskiy had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
California
Protests Swept California Campuses Last Year. Schools Are Now Blocking Them | KQED
At UC Santa Cruz, police arrested one student who was using a megaphone during a demonstration on Oct. 7, according to an eyewitness who spoke to LookOut Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office public arrest reports show one person was arrested on the Santa Cruz campus for obstruction of a public officer and battery without injury that day.
While no arrests were made, Pomona College has suspended 12 students for the remainder of the 2024–25 academic year following an Oct. 7 demonstration in which they entered, damaged and vandalized a restricted building, according to the student newspaper. The college also banned dozens of students from the four other campuses of the Claremont Colleges, a consortium that includes Pomona.
Private colleges have implemented their own policy changes. Pomona College now requires students and faculty to swipe their ID cards to enter academic buildings. Since last semester, students and visitors entering USC are also required to show a school or photo ID.
Some students are still facing charges from last year’s protests
Few charges have been filed after UCLA’s encampment made headlines in April when counterprotesters led an attack on encampment protesters while law enforcement did not intervene for several hours. The following day, 254 people were arrested on charges related to the protest encampment. In October, two additional people were also arrested for participating in the counter-protester violence.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office is pursuing three felony cases against individuals arrested at UCLA in relation to violence during last spring’s protests.
Meanwhile, the city attorney’s office is reviewing 93 misdemeanor cases from USC and 210 from UCLA, according to information it provided to CalMatters last month.
Lilyan Zwirzina, a junior at Cal Poly Humboldt, was among the students arrested in the early morning of April 30 following protesters occupying a campus building and ignoring orders to disperse from the university. Law enforcement took her to Humboldt County Correctional Facility, where she faced four misdemeanor charges, including resisting arrest. Zwirzina thought she’d have to cancel her study abroad semester, which conflicted with the court date she was given.
“I was pretty frustrated and kind of freaked out,” Zwirzina said. Authorities dropped the charges against her in July.
The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office didn’t pursue charges against 27 of the 39 people arrested, citing insufficient evidence. The 12 remaining cases were referred to the Cal Poly Humboldt Police Department for investigation. Those cases remain under investigation, according to the university.
For 13 people, including students, arrested at Stanford University in June, the Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen has not pressed charges as of Nov. 20, according to information his office provided CalMatters.
Elsewhere across the state, some district attorneys are pursuing misdemeanor and felony charges against student protesters. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is pursuing misdemeanor charges against 50 people, including two UCI professors, a teaching assistant, and 26 students, stemming from a protest at UC Irvine on Oct. 22, 2023. Charges include failure to disperse, resisting arrest and vandalism.
At Pomona College, 19 students were arrested on April 5 on charges of trespassing after some protesters entered and refused to leave an administrative building. Students arrested either had their cases dismissed or have accepted community service in lieu of further legal action. James Gutierrez, the attorney representing the arrested students, said he asked that the college drop charges against its students, citing their right to protest the use of paid tuition dollars.
“They are righteously demanding that their colleges, the ones they pay tuition to and housing fees and pour a lot of money into, that that university or college stop investing in companies that are directly supporting this genocide and indirectly supporting it,” he said.
Students fight back against campus protest policies
As administrators face the challenge of applying protest policies more uniformly and swiftly, the truer test of California public higher education institutions’ protest rules will be playing out in court.
In one already resolved case, UC leadership agreed in August to comply with a court order requiring the campus to end programs or events that exclude Jewish students. A federal judge ruled some Jewish students in support of Israel who were blocked from entering the encampment had their religious liberties violated — though some Jewish students did participate in UCLA’s protest encampment.
Now, students have filed at least two lawsuits against their campuses and the UC system for violating their rights while ending student encampments last spring. In September, ACLU NorCal filed suits against the UC and UC Santa Cruz for not providing students due process when they immediately barred arrested students from returning to campus.
“Those students should have gotten a hearing, an opportunity to defend themselves or to explain themselves, and the school would have shown evidence of why they created a risk of disturbance on campus,” Chessie Thacher, senior staff attorney at ACLU of Northern California, said.
UC Santa Cruz spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason said the university “appreciates the court’s careful deliberation” and that the university “is committed to upholding the right to free expression while also protecting the safety of its campus community.”
In October, ACLU SoCal filed lawsuits on behalf of two students and two faculty members against the UC and UCLA, alleging the actions the university took to break down the encampment violated their free speech rights.
UCLA spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez told CalMatters via email that the university would respond in court and that UCLA “fully supports community members expressing their First Amendment rights in ways that do not violate the law, our policies, jeopardize community safety, or disrupt the functioning of the university.”
“The encampment that arose on campus this spring became a focal point for violence, a disruption to campus, and was in violation of the law,” Vazquez said in the email statement. “These conditions necessitated its removal.”
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