Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage in California

By City News Service

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California on Wednesday, ruling that supporters of Prop. 8 lacked the legal standing to appeal lower court rulings that declared the voter-approved measure unconstitutional.

Southern California supporters of gay marriage were celebrating the 5-4 ruling,  which doesn't affect marriage laws in other states.

"We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to," according to the ruling. "We decline to do so for the first time here.

Because Prop. 8 supporters had no standing, the court did not rule on the merits of same-sex marriage, but merely upheld the original federal court ruling striking down California's anti-gay marriage measure. 

Officials in West Hollywood, which is home to a large gay and lesbian community, plan to hold a morning news conference to respond to the court's ruling. 

The Orange County Equality Coalition plans to hold an evening rally at the old county courthouse in Santa Ana.

History of Prop. 8

In March 2000, California voters approved Prop. 22, which specified only marriages between a man and a woman are valid in California. But in May 2008, the state Supreme Court ruled the law 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 preserved the validity of the roughly 18,000 same-sex couples weddings that occurred before its passage.

Same-sex marriage supporters sued in federal court, and U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled in August 2010 that Prop. 8 "unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation."

Backers of Prop. 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."

"It stripped same-sex couples of the ability they previously possessed to obtain and use the designation of 'marriage' to describe their relationships," according to the court's decision.

"Nothing more, nothing less. Proposition 8 therefore could not have been enacted to advance California's interests in child-rearing or responsible procreation, for it had no effect on the rights of same-sex couples to raise children or on the procreative practices of other couples.

"Nor did Proposition 8 have any effect on religious freedom or on parents' rights to control their children's education; it could not have been enacted to safeguard those liberties."

In addition to Prop. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court also struck down a key portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted in 1996 and defined marriage solely as a union between opposite-sex couples. The court ruled that the act was unconstitutional by denying federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

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