Eva Jefferson Paterson: Prop 8 Overhauled the Constitution

11/21/08 The Recorder (subscription required): Eva Jefferson Paterson is president and a founder of the Equal Justice Society, a San Francisco-based civil rights legal organization. Equal Justice Society was one of several civil rights groups that filed a petition to overturn Prop. 8. (Asian American Legal Center et al. v. Horton et al., Cal. Supreme Court case no. S168281). Paterson says that by "purporting to deny equal protection to one group, Prop 8 threatens the most basic principle of our democracy: that all people have an inalienable right to equal treatment under the law ... Our petition, like the petitions the court agreed to hear in its ruling this past Wednesday, argues that Prop 8 is a radical change to our state constitution that cannot be accomplished through an initiative. If it only takes a bare majority to take away the most fundamental guarantee of equal protection, then we are truly all at risk."