Re: Vaughn Walker

Nice hypothetical, Easy.  Here's a better one: what if space aliens came down and took over Dunkin' Donuts?  That's about as likely as our Congressional representatives passing legislation whose only purpose was to destroy the black family.  Can you say "Straw Man?"

But you actually high-light an important point.  A regularly passed Statute has a legislative history that can be used to interpret the Statute.  In essence, our elected representatives give actual testimony during the debates as to their intentions in voting for or against the Statute.  In this sense, a representative's psychological intentions can be, and often are, public policy as well.  Even in this context however judicial interpretation of a Statute is severely constrained.  Individual representative's intentions cannot change the plain meaning of the legislation, nor the obvious public policy it embodies. 

 These same limitations are even more constraining on the judiciary in the context of a referendum.  In a referendum, the people themselves vote, and there is nothing comparable to the legislative history of a Statute to appeal to.  Campaign ads and sound bites leading up to the vote are just not comparable to legislative debates, and the ultimate rationale followed in the voting booth proper can only be a matter of speculation.

 Proposition 8 merely codified a wide spread social organization that everybody understod was between a man and a woman.  It was not ambiguous, and clearly had only one purpose: to maintain the status quo.  As such, appeals to voter intentions for possible nefarious motives is ridiculous and a complete dereliction of Judge Walker's duties as a Federal Court Judge.