Article: Pa. court upholds gay-rally ruling
Pa. court upholds gay-rally ruling
Published: Jul 25, 2008
By MICHAEL YODER, Intelligencer Journal
While obviously I’d rather it wasn’t this particular law that was used to set the precedent*, overall this is a positive outcome for anyone who has any interest in limited, understandable government. Essentially, the legislature used a completely unrelated bill to lump unpopular changes into something that legislatures couldn’t vote against. This happens all the time at both the state and federal levels and is one of the things that drives my nuts about congressional politics.
*As it happens, I tend to feel hate crimes laws are used *way* too broadly. Overall, they do more good than harm though.
Wednesday’s ruling, initiated by a lawsuit involving Manheim Township resident Mark Diener, found that the Pennsylvania Legislature’s altering of a 2002 crop-destruction bill into an amendment to the “ethnic intimidation” law violated Article III of the state’s constitution.