A response to "Prop 8 overruling a threat to democracy"

In his opinion piece from Aug. 31, Robert Turner worries about the larger political impact of the ruling on Prop 8 by a federal district court last August. His concern is that the "will of the people" is being overturned by a judge -- a clear violation of the spirit of the democratic process. Mr. Turner abandons most libertarians and adopts the Republican position that the "will of the people" supersedes the protections in the constitution, a document which Republicans usually pay lip service to, at least until doing so becomes politically undesirable.

What Mr. Turner has missed is that America is not a pure democracy. The constitution was specifically designed to be a shield against the "tyranny of the majority" that results from pure democracy. We have a constitution so that we can have self government, but with rules and protections. One of those rules is that you cannot vote away people's rights. For instance, a ballot initiative banning harmless political speech would likely be struck down as unconstitutional, and it's a virtue of our system that we can govern ourselves without letting the majority tyrannize the minority. It's certainly imperfect, and it doesn't always work the way that it should, but it's an excellent check on government power when it does work.

Unfortunately though, Mr. Turner wants to let the majority of Californians vote away the rights of a minority of its citizens, and a federal judge rightfully blocked this injustice by invoking longstanding constitutional protections. If the American democracy that Mr. Turner envisions actually existed, then any number of tyrannies could be forced upon minority groups through the power of the ballot. We should all be thankful that we have a constitution to protect us from such a fate.

Michael Dippold, economics major