Supreme Court Justice Denies Bid to Stop California Gay Marriages
Sunday, 30 Jun 2013 01:46 PM
The first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco City Hall since 2008 was Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, both plaintiffs in the court case against California’s Proposition 8. California Attorney General Kamala Harris performed the ceremony on a balcony overlooking the city hall rotunda.
“I now declare you spouses for life,” Harris concluded, to an outburst of cheers and applause.
With a 5-4 procedural ruling, the Supreme Court reinstated a judge’s order allowing gay marriages by concluding that the sponsors of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that banned gay marriage, lacked legal standing to appeal a trial judge’s order. California officials until now enforced Proposition 8, refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses even while opposing the ballot initiative in court.
Twelve other states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage, six of them in the past year.
DOMA Struck
The Supreme Court also struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that denied benefits to same-sex couples legally married in states that allowed it. The court stopped short of declaring a constitutional right for gays to marry, or even ruling directly on California’s voter-approved ban, as the justices considered the issue for the first time.
The decisions sustained the momentum that has grown behind same-sex marriage over the past decade. A Bloomberg National Poll released this month found that 52 percent of adults supported legalization, with 41 percent opposed. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
There were more than 130,000 married, gay couples in the U.S., according to estimates from the 2010 Census.
After the appeals court order, California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, directed county clerks in the state’s 58 counties to immediately begin issuing marriages licenses to same-sex couples.
Power Challenged
The Proposition 8 sponsors said the appeals court should have waited until the Supreme Court issued a certified copy of the judgment in the case -- something the high court typically doesn’t do until 25 days after its opinion is released. The 25- day period is designed to give the losing side time to seek rehearing.
The appeals court “was without jurisdiction to issue its order purporting to dissolve its stay,” the sponsors, led by former state Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, argued in papers filed with the Supreme Court.
Kennedy, who handles emergency matters from the San Francisco-based appeals court, made no comment in rejecting the request from the Proposition 8 sponsors to halt the weddings.
The appeals court decision lifting the ban was condemned by supporters of Proposition 8.
‘Outrageous Act’
“This outrageous act tops off a chronic pattern of lawlessness, throughout this case, by judges and politicians hell-bent on thwarting the vote of the people to redefine marriage by any means, even outright corruption,” Andy Pugno, general counsel for the ProtectMarriage.com Coalition, said in a statement.
“Homosexual marriage is not happening because the people changed their mind,” Pugno said. “It isn’t happening because the appellate courts declared a new constitutional right. It’s happening because enemies of the people have abused their power to manipulate the system and render the people voiceless.”
Perry and Stier might have been beaten to their vows by another same-sex couple who received their marriage license from the Los Angeles County clerk’s office at 4:07 p.m. on June 28, spokeswoman Regina Ip said.
In San Francisco, Bobby Meadows, 40, and Craig Stein, 39, married each other on the balcony overlooking the City Hall rotunda. Meadows wore shorts and held a small bouquet of yellow, red and blue flowers. Stein wore jeans. The deputy marriage commissioner who presided over the ceremony hugged each as he handed them their marriage certificate.
Overwhelming, Awesome
“It’s amazing,” Meadows said in an interview. “I grew up never expecting to be able to do this in my lifetime, to announce the love for the man that I love. It’s overwhelming. It’s awesome.”
More than 18,000 same-sex couples got marriage licenses in California in the five months between a state Supreme Court ruling that gay marriages were legal and the 2008 passage of Proposition 8, which effectively overturned that decision.
The appeals court said in February 2012 that Proposition 8 violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by stripping same-sex couples of a right they once had -- and that heterosexual couples would continue to possess.
The appeals court decision upheld a San Francisco federal judge’s 2010 ruling that Proposition 8 violated equal protection rights of gay and lesbian couples, and put the ruling on hold until the case had been appealed and argued to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Did you read the Supreme Court opinion? It is based on lack of standing by the plaintiff. They did not rule the ban unconstitutional. As the article states, the Court is lagging public opinion on gay marriage.
ReplyDelete-David
The court did rule that way, but the essential message was that the law was not constitutional.
DeleteYou are probably right. There are some cases currently working up through the federal system. If Justice Kennedy remains of the same opinion, the Supreme Court will allow homosexual marriage in all states. I believe it is a states rights issue under the constitution. I agree with the DOMA decision, because it does create an unconstitutional intrusion by the federal government into an area of law reserved for the states. By the same token, I believe the Supreme Court should not overturn state laws in places like Alabama that do not recognize gay marriages. Let the states adopt gay marriage laws over time, which certainly is happening and will continue to happen around the country as the older generation dies off. Young adults don't care about this "issue." Meanwhile, gay couples can migrate from Alabama to Washington in order to live in states with marriage equality, and they don't need any help from the Supreme Court to do it.
ReplyDelete--David