AKA William

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Richard C. Gilbert, the lawyer representing Smelt in the Smelt v. United States case (the one that’s caused all the Department of Justice hubbub) in the fight to get DOMA overturned, has a secondary plan that sounds very wacky:

“We’re hoping to use the case in court as a springboard to get a proposition on the ballot that will break up California into two states,” said , a partner at Gilbert & Marlowe, a law firm with two offices in California. “We think if we can get this proposition on the ballot, we think we’ll win.

. . . Gilbert likened the circumstances of his clients — Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer — to Dredd Scott, who sued for his freedom in the 19th century only to have the US Supreme Court rule in 1857 that no African-American, free or enslaved, could be a US citizen. That decision contributed to the Civil War and Scott was eventually freed.

“We don’t want a civil war,” Gilbert said. “We just want to have civil division in our state between people who are willing to respect the rights of all people and those who are not.” Residents of New California, in his view, would be far more amenable to arguments in favor of marriage equality than those in the southern part of the state.

Now, this is above the range of my legal expertise, but I can’t imagine that a good, modern way to fight for equality is to start dividing up states. Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, says, “I think it is reckless and intolerable to risk bad court rulings through premature and poorly executed litigation putting gay people’s freedom to marry and legal rights at risk for other dubious agendas.”

Yeah, I’m with Wolfson.

h/t JMG.