worst-case-scenario question about the CA election

[darthmix]

I asked this in the California forum last week but no one seems to know. Suppose that the marriage protection act passes in CA this November and the state constitution gets amended to define marriage as man-woman. Well, as public support continues to build for marriage equality, couldn't we just amend it back at some point in the future through the same means - a ballot initative, so many signatures, and a simple majority of the vote? Or is there some kind of "no takebacks" rule in the CA initiative system that prevents this? It just seems like if all you need is a majority to pass a constitutional amendment, then it isn't a very strong amendment. Right?

[FreepFryer]

1. Amendments can be repealed by other amendments, in two ways.

{...} Once an amendment has become law, portions of the original text may be deleted or new articles may be inserted among existing ones. The second, less common method, is for amendments to be appended to the end of the main text in the form of special articles of amendment, leaving the body of the original text intact. Although the wording of the original text is not altered, the doctrine of implied repeal applies. In other words, in the event of conflict, an article of amendment will usually take precedence over the provisions of the original text, or of an earlier amendment. Nonetheless, there may still be ambiguity as to whether an amendment is intended to supersede an existing article in the text or merely to supplement it. An article of amendment may, however, explicitly express itself as having the effect of repealing a specific existing article.

(See by way of example the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on the repeal of prohibition. Section 1 of the article repeals the 18th Amendment.)

The use of appended articles of amendment is most famous as a feature of the United States Constitution, but it is also the method of amendment in a number of other jurisdictions, such as Venezuela.

c/o Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_amendment

[sui generis]

2. the worst thing is

If it is a majority slam on us then it is definitely a decades long setback, not just in California but in any other state that dares to follow the same judicial and legislative lead.

We lose momentum.

But being over-cautious is a lack of inertia all it's own creation.

The main thing is if we fail to make our case to keep marriage legal, we fail bad. We have five months. Time to get busy talking to people outside the choir.

[Tektonik]

3. If it happens, I'm moving to Canada within the next five years.

If this country hates me that much, fuck it.