By now you've no doubt heard that Prop 8 was upheld 6-1 by the California Supreme Court, which held that the good people of California have a right to amend their constitution by the initiative process.

The Attorney General's argument (representing the GLBT interest) was essentially that a constitutional process could not be exercised if it conflicted with a prior judicial interpretation of the constitution--judicial interpretation trumps the actual constitution!

Its a pretty reasonable decision, meaning that it was politically safe. How was the Supreme Court going to tell Californians that their will was inferior to that of seven judges? Gays and Lesbians came away with a bone though--Prop 8 won't be applied retroactively, which means that all the marriages performed before Prop 8 are legal.

What's interesting though is why.

Prop 8 was drafted very narrowly by sticking to the definition of marriage rather than getting into the rights associated with it.

I've written that the GLBT made a huge mistake trying to ram this down the throats of Americans with a backdoor judicial process. The cudgel has been stripped from their hands and they are effectively back to a political process--one in which they've trashed the house and the parents are on their way back from the airport.

Having radicalized their own constituency to accept nothing less than full equality with heterosexuals, it could be very tough now to sell what was always a winning argument--gays and lesbians deserve companion rights, short of full equality with traditional marriage.