The US Department of State publishes a booklet called "Principles of Democracy" to explain to the world what our shining city on a hill, our vaunted constitutional democracy, really stands for. I find it interesting, as the Pro-PropH8 side prepares its argument worshiping the popular vote, to see what our government says in this booklet about minority rights. What are we telling the world about our foundational beliefs? The booklet begins,

On the surface, the principles of majority rule and the protection of individual and minority rights would seem contradictory. In fact, however, these principles are twin pillars holding up the very foundation of what we mean by democratic government.

Our constitutional democracy protects the rights of the minority. The government says so. And the ruling principles are over the jump.

·Majority rule is a means for organizing government and deciding public issues; it is not another road to oppression. Just as no self-appointed group has the right to oppress others, so no majority, even in a democracy, should take away the basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual.

Got that? That's the foundational argument. That's the argument that Atty General Jerry Brown has made in his DailyKos diary today.

·Minorities - whether as a result of ethnic background, religious belief, geographic location, income level, or simply as the losers in elections or political debate - enjoy guaranteed basic human rights that no government, and no majority, elected or not, should remove. 

·Minorities need to trust that the government will protect their rights and self-identity. Once this is accomplished, such groups can participate in, and contribute to their country's democratic institutions.

That's it. Can we, as GLBT Californians, as GLBT Americans, TRUST our government to protect our rights? That's what the judiciary is for.

·Among the basic human rights that any democratic government must protect are freedom of speech and expression; freedom of religion and belief; due process and equal protection under the law; and freedom to organize, speak out, dissent, and participate fully in the public life of their society.

So, I think this is the crux. Is marriage a "basic human right"? The California Supreme Court thinks so; it said as much in the decision in May in in re Marriages that allowed me to get married: ""[T]he right to marry is not properly viewed simply as a benefit or privilege that a government may establish or abolish as it sees fit, but rather that the right constitutes a basic civil or human right of all people."