Bad news from California, Prop 8 stands but the 18,000 same-sex marriages entered into before the election remain valid. The ruling went 6-1. Demonstrations are already happening and it looks like this will be the launch of a movement to overturn the change at the next election. This time the campaign will focus on bringing people of faith as well as Blacks and Latinos. There’s also talk of a campaign to recall the six judges who voted for inequality (the Supreme Court is elected and can be recalled by the people). The momentum is with equality and hopefully they can build a strong campaign to undo this injustice.

I was fascinated to hear on the radio last week that the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act creates no rights that are enforceable in a court or tribunal nor does it empower the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission to do anything about a breach of human rights, it’s simply a compliance reporting tool for the government. It can only be hoped that any federal Charter doesn’t go down this path and actually creates rights that can be enforced against the government and others, otherwise what’s the point? It’d just be smoke and mirrors.

The President of Burundi needs to whip up the masses to help him get re-elected and what better way to do it than by a good old fashioned bout of gay bashing with a mass rent-a-crowd rally thrown in for good measure. Commendably, the opposition controlled Senate stood up to this bigotry and tossed out the news laws that would have amended the country’s criminal law. However the lower house has the final say and the laws went through a few days ago as you can read about here.