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After years of debate and legal wrangling between opponents and proponents of same-sex marriage, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning left intact a lower-court ruling that struck down the state’s Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on gay marriage.
The court ruled that the sponsors of Proposition 8 had no standing, or legal authority, to appeal a trial court ruling that struck down the statewide ban on same-sex marriage.
The decision has the effect of reinstating a 2010 ruling in which U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the ban violated the federal constitutional rights to equal treatment and due process.
Gov. Jerry Brown and state Attorney General Kamala Harris had refused to appeal Walker’s ruling, and the high court said today that proponents of a voter initiative don’t have the right to defend it on appeal if state officials decline to do so.
In another decision today, the court by a 5-4 vote struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which had prohibited the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex marriage.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has said that in the event that the Supreme Court ruled on the standing issue, he expected same-sex weddings in the California to resume by late July.
That timing includes 25 days in which Proposition 8 sponsors could ask the court for a rehearing, plus several days for a federal appeals court
to issue a mandate dismissing the appeal.
But there could be further litigation about the scope of the trial court ruling striking down Proposition 8.
Herrera and lawyers for two couples who challenged Proposition 8 say the injunction issued by Walker requires California officials to license and register same-sex marriages statewide.
The sponsors of Proposition 8 have said in court filings, however, that they think Walker’s injunction would apply only to the two individual
couples who challenged Proposition 8.
The couples, who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in San Francisco in 2009, are Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier of Berkeley and Paul
Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo of Burbank.
In March 2000, California voters approved Prop. 22, which specified in state law that only marriages between a man and a woman are valid in California. But in May of 2008, the state Supreme Court ruled the law was unconstitutional because it discriminated against gays, and an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples got married in the ensuing months.
Opponents of same-sex marriage quickly got Prop. 8 on the November 2008 ballot to amend the state constitution, and it was approved by a margin of 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent. The approval was followed by statewide protests and lawsuits challenging Prop. 8’s legality.
In May 2009, the California Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8 but also ruled that the unions of roughly 18,000 same-sex couples who were wed in 2008 prior to its passage would remain valid.
Same-sex marriage supporters took their case to federal court, and U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled in August 2010 that Proposition 8 “bot unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Backers of Proposition 8 — ProtectMarriage.com — appealed to the 9th Circuit, because then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then-Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to do so. The appellate court heard arguments in 2011 but put a decision on hold while it awaited a state Supreme Court ruling on the ability of Prop. 8 backers to press the case forward despite the state’s refusal to appeal.
Once the state Supreme Court decided that Prop. 8 supporters had legal standing, the 9th Circuit moved ahead with its consideration of the case, hearing more arguments on a motion by Prop. 8 backers asking that Walker’s ruling be thrown out because the judge was in a long-term same-sex relationship that he had not disclosed.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the proposition’s primary impact was to “lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”
JuliaCheever, Bay City News, contributed to this story.
JuliaCheever, Bay City News, contributed to this story.
By Jeb Bing
It’s about time!
“If Justice Prevails, You can always Appeal.”
Fantastic! One less social issue that the US Government can use as cannon fodder to separate and legislate the citizenry.
A step in the right direction! VIVA America!
Another convenient distraction from the scandals and real problems plaguing our country. No matter how you try to force people to accept abhorent behavior or degrade traditional marriage, the majority of citizens will continue to dismiss their attempts to gain legitimacy.
Sorry, chump, but the polls disagree with you. Let me inform you: the current year is 2013, not 1930. Get with it, or see a therapist.
I thought that the reason that DOMA & Prop 8 were such big issues is that it now means that all Americans will be treated equally under the law.
Making the world a better place is a good deed.
Clare, would these be polls like the ones taken right before prop 8 passed? You know, prop 8, where a majority of Californians voted to retain traditional marriage and not to allow same sex marriages? Polls can be rigged, based on the questions asked and the population polled. I guess elections can be rigged as well, if you want to make that argument, but the point is, the will of the voters of our state was just usurped (again) today.
I suppose the only good news in all of this is that if gay couples remain faithful to their married partner, maybe the spread of AIDS will be reduced, or at least keep it under one roof.
Yep, guess we should all be able to marry who we wish without limitation. Next time you see a plural marriage, remember it’s all equal rights. Or when you see a child bride taken, remember it’s all equal rights. When you see someone wish to marry a non-human, say an animal, remember that there should be no limitations on these things. What if three guys, or three women or two of one and one of another want to marry, well, it would be their equal right. And hey, if some guy wants to marry his child sister, it’s not your business because it’s their choice. This is going to be very cool for those that want to further cheat the system with obtaining benefits for “spouses” that we already can’t afford.
Yippee!!!!
Sometimes I forget that so many Americans have so little respect for the US Supreme Court and our system of justice?
The justices make a decision, and there’s such an outpouring of ignorant responses?
How come so much silly willy thinking by fellow Americans who are unhappy with today’s ruling? That’s how the law works. Times change, the laws change…that’s a reasonable formula for maintaining a sane society.
VIVA AMERICA! VIVA!
What does it mean to “wag the dog”?
People’s opinions change, as obviously has been happening for the past several years … but of course you’d have to judge today’s public opinion against yesteryear’s.
What the homophobes like ‘wag the dog’ don’t realize is that in matters of human/civil rights, majorities shall not prevail. Majority rule; minority rights. Ring a bell? Hello?
I don’t know why three consenting adults cannot choose to marry one another — emphasis: adults; consenting.
Animals are unable to consent. Nor do children have the right to legally give their consent. I think the homophobes bring up these ridiculous hypotheticals (Mimi) because they’re actually harboring such fetishes themselves.
Let’s not confuse rights-holding adults with the kind of wholesale child slavery engaged in by polygamous Mormons and others until they were forced to stop.
The Supreme Court — 5 of them — were able to cut through the illogical hypotheticals of the homophobic right, albeit we were treated to the rambling hysterics of the gang of 4 old white guys.
The attached web link speaks to what MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of American women, girls & boys live with: http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
I agree that such references to engaging in sex with animals is a projection.
IT’S ABOUT TIME THAT DOMA GOT A REASONABLE REVIEW.
VIVA AMERICA! VIVA!
WE LIVE IN A GREAT COUNTRY!
Clarence is “white”?
FYI: http://www.pandys.org/malesurvivors.html
hilarious that clare thinks clarence thomas and sonia sotomayor are old white guys. did you even read a single article about this issue, let alone know who’s on the supreme court? or did you simply raise your hands in victory, joining your liberal “professor” at las positas?
tee hee
While visiting DC a few years ago I saw Justice Thomas. He had on a red and pink pony tail and he actually looked white! I said, JEEPERS CREEPERS!
NOBODY described Justice Sotomayor as an old white guy.
Justice Thomas is married to a woman at this time.
easy there cholo, don’t get your mary jane’s all up in a bunch. she (clare) made reference to 5 justices voting to overturn prop 8 and the 4 other old white guys. of the 4 with common sense, only two of them are white males.
tee hee
I haven’t hear the expression re: mary jane’s. What does it mean?
Dear clueless clare/mimi
Roberts, Alieto, and Scalia, all white guys, voted in the minority. Thomas, the white guy wannabe, joined them. The three women justices all voted as part of the 5-4 majority.
Can you truly be so dumb? You really do think people like yourselves would want to marry a horse? Or is this simply wishful thinking on your part given your early farmboy experiences?
you really can’t read can you? let me break it down for you:
majority: 1. Chief Justice John Roberts, 2. Antonin Scalia, 3. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 4. Stephen Breyer and 5. Elena Kagan.
minority: 1. Anthony Kennedy,2. Clarence Thomas, 3. Samuel Alito and 4. Sonia Sotomayor.
anymore questions dummy?
Geez don’t you people read before spouting off?!?
Majority included all female justices.
Majority:
1. Kennedy
2. Ginsburg
3. Sotomayor
4. Kagan
5. Breyer
Yes, Julie. I chalk it up to an inherent stupidity. Beyond perhaps misreading the results, as “clueless” clearly has, one must wonder how anyone with an ounce of intelligence would have thought Sotomayor would have voted with the old homophobic white men and white man wannabe. Yet, here we have “clueless”, day in and day out, spewing his hatred while claiming to know something about the political world. He is actually very funny, an a pathetic kind of way.
It’s a social issue that has NO place being legislated by the Federal Government. The simple fact that DOMA did more to deny federal benefits and legal access to same sex couples was bad law from the onset. I’ve yet to hear a single argument other than the “my God says gays are icky” comment spewing from the mouths of the so-called “Christians” who seem to have more in common with the whackamoles from the Westborough Baptist Church.
Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t marry a gay person. Don’t like abortion, cross your legs, slp on a jimmy hat or just don’t have one. Don’t waste your time trying to impose your vision of morality and ethics on the rest of the populace. I will not be judged in this lifetime but rather in Gods time and I’m pretty comfortable with that.
Peace out P-Town!
A DAY OF SHAME FOR OUR NATION.
Clare, thanks for your great comments, I am with you all the way on what you posted. From your first post, it really is sad that five made this happen and four against. I would have liked to have seen perhaps, six or seven for. It only took that one person to make this happen!
Just simple good news for the state of California (though the status of Prop 8 in the outcome is vague), and for the nation (DOMA was clear discrimination).
The polls show a shift in favor of marriage equality in California. This went through the courts, but another initiative favoring same-sex marriage would likely have passed. Now that appears unnecessary.
Experience in the 12 states that already legalize same-sex marriage shows that society hasn’t collapsed into a smoking heap of rubble. I mean, after all, same-sex marriage is legal in Iowa, of all places!
Now, we can move on to fixing that mistake about the Voting Rights Act
The fact that Holder and obami decried the ruling against the outdated, unenforceable Vote Fixing Act says it all. This is one happy white cracker who is happy the Supremes got one thing right. I’m now considered a minority in this state, it doesn’t bother me in the least they overturned this prejudicial law.
Most cases that go to the Supreme Court are Propositions, etc that WE VOTE FOR BY CASTING A VOTE YES OR NO. Then as soon as it is passed – it is appealed.
I wonder why we vote at times. I think any proposition or item on a ballot should be approved by a State Supreme Court or Federal Supreme Court to be correct in the way it is stated so that it cannot be appeal immediately after the polls are closed.
This would save a lot of money and time!
Questionable, have you ever taken a civics class? It might clear up your confusion.