11/20/08

CA Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Lawsuit Arguments in Prop 8 Fight

From the Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center: "Earlier today, the California Supreme Court agreed to hear several lawsuits filed against Proposition 8 by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, several cities and counties and a Los Angeles private attorney.

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The court denied our side’s request for a stay that would have allowed county clerks to continue performing same-sex marriages until the court made a final ruling on Prop 8.

The lawsuits that will be heard by the Supreme Court argue that:

* Prop 8 is invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution.
* Prop 8 violates the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution.
* If Prop 8 is NOT unconstitutional, the marriages performed BEFORE Prop 8 passed should still be valid.

The court gave the state of California until December 19 to respond to the lawsuits and gave our side until January 5 to respond to the state. Amicus briefs must be filed by January 15, and responses to those by January 21. Oral argument could be held as early as March 2009. State Attorney General Jerry Brown earlier had urged the court to issue a prompt ruling, stating in his filing, “Review by this court is necessary to ensure uniformity of decision, finality and certainty for the citizens of California.”

While it is a positive development for our side, the court’s decision to hear the lawsuits does not necessarily mean it will rule to overturn Prop 8. In the past 100 years, “the California Supreme Court has heard nine cases challenging either legislative enactments or initiatives as invalid revisions of the California Constitution."

1 comment:

Becky C. said...

I am cautiously optomistic about this. Although I think the Supreme Court thought that Proposition 8 would be defeated when they denied the motion to enjoin same sex marriages pending the election-- but they had to know this might happen.

The situation is now some same sex couples have full rights and others do not. There is no question the ones who already went down the aisle can not be stripped of their rights. So this creates a serious equal protection constitutional problem--some gay couples are more equal than others.

Also, somewhat analogous--back in the sixties,the California Supreme Court ruled that some type of procedure regarding housing was racially discriminatory and violated the constitution. So the bigots got together and passed a proposition putting a bigotry amendment into the state Constitution.

Both the California Supreme Court and SCOTUS said you can't do that kind of shit.

~Becky