Judge Overturns CA Ban on Gay Marriage

USA Today

A federal judge has overturned California's same-sex marriage ban in a landmark case that eventually could land before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yet the ruling Wednesday does not mean gays and lesbians can get married right away in California.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker put his decision on hold pending responses from lawyers on both sides about whether his ruling should take effect right away. The responses are due by Friday.

Douglas Napier, a lawyer for Protect Marriage — which defended the ban because Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to — said the group will file an appeal of the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the next few days.

"We're filing an appeal before the ink is dry on the judge's ruling," Napier said. He said proponents of the ban are disappointed in the ruling but are not surprised.

Both sides said the case will likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court and lead to a national standard on same-sex marriage. However, Napier said a final decision could take years.

Walker, nominated by President George H.W. Bush, made his ruling in a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who claimed the ban, known as Proposition 8, violated their civil rights.


14th Amendment at center of case

The case centered on whether Proposition 8 is constitutional under the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. California voters approved the ban in November 2008, following a state court ruling that May saying gays and lesbians had a right to marry under the state Constitution.

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license," Walker wrote. "Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."

Theodore Olson, one of the lawyers for the Proposition 8 opponents, said: "This is what American justice is all about."

Olson, a conservative Republican and former solicitor general, teamed with David Boies, who had been his adversary in the 2000 presidential clash at the Supreme Court, Bush v. Gore. Olson argued on behalf of then-governor of Texas George W. Bush, and Boies, then-vice president Al Gore.

The ruling has national significance, Yale law professor William Eskridge said.

"There's probably no more important public law issue kicking around right now," he said. He expects the ruling to spur more lawsuits and legislative proposals to legalize same-sex marriages.

"It's a shot in the arm" for lawsuits seeking marriage equality, he said.

'Milestone for millions'

Reaction to the ruling was swift from advocates on both sides.

"This ruling is an historic milestone for millions of loving families, for all who have fought to realize the dream of equality under the law, and for our nation as a whole," said Rick Jacobs, founder and chairman of Courage Campaign, a gay-rights group.

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, called the judge biased.

"With a stroke of his pen, Judge Walker has overruled the votes and values of 7 million Californians who voted for marriage as one man and one woman," Brown said of Proposition 8, which passed with 52% of the vote. "This ruling, if allowed to stand, threatens not only Prop 8 in California but the laws in 45 other states that define marriage as one man and one woman."

C. Welton Gaddy, a practicing Baptist minister and president of Interfaith Alliance, an advocacy group that applauded the ruling, found in the ruling "important distinctions between civil marriage and religious marriage."

Gaddy said Walker's ruling "was sensitive to the concerns of people of faith who oppose same-gender marriage on religious grounds but that he recognized, as do we, that their religious freedom will not be impacted by the legalization of same-gender marriage."

The gay community has been here before, gay-rights advocates say.

Dean Seymour married his longtime partner in San Francisco in 2004 before the state Supreme Court voided those marriages. They got married again in June 2008 after the state Supreme Court later allowed them to marry.

"We'll keep doing it until they get it right," he said.