The editorial board of the LA Times published an editorial calling for Californians to vote against a proposition that would nullify marriages between same-sex couples in the state.

According to the editorial, the question is different than the voter-approved Proposition 22, which banned marriage between same-sex partners eight years ago. Now, the Supreme Court has declared that marriage is a fundamental right for all Californians and the proposition would, in fact, eliminate these rights.

The editorial reads:

It’s a rare and drastic step, invoking the constitutional-amendment process to strip people of rights. Yet in California, it can be done with a simple majority vote. All the more reason for voters to weigh carefully what would be wrought by this measure.

…

[T]he very act of denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry — traditionally the highest legal and societal recognition of a loving commitment — by definition relegates them and their relationships to second-class status, separate and not all that equal.

To be sure, the court overturned Proposition 22, a vote of the people. That is the court’s duty when a law is unconstitutional, even if it is exceedingly popular. Civil rights are commonly hard-won, and not the result of widespread consensus. Whites in the South vehemently rejected the 1954 Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. For that matter, Californians have accused the state Supreme Court of obstructing the people’s will on marriage before — in 1948, when it struck down a ban on interracial marriages.

Fundamental rights are exactly that. They should neither wait for popular acceptance, nor be revoked because it is lacking.