9th Circuit Strikes Down Proposition 8

I'm sorry for not doing a post sooner on the historic ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit which upheld Judge Vaughn Walker's ruing that found California's religious bigotry based Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Personally, having read the U. S. Supreme Court decisions in the Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas cases and other federal court rulings, I don't see how the 9th Circuit could have rendered a different decision without gutting the U. S. Constitution's guaranty of religious freedom - including freedom from a set religious dogma. As discussed many times on this blog, anti-gay discrimination and anti-gay laws boil down to one thing: punishing LGBT citizens for their nonconformity to conservative Christian religious dogma. Fortunately, the evidence in the district court trial before Judge Vaughn - which will be the binding facts in the event of an appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court - made this basis for Proposition 8 very clear. Whether or not the Christofascists supporting Prop 8 will appeal is something that time will tell. My bets are that they will appeal and then the Supreme Court will have to either take the appeal or let the 9th Circuit ruling stand and be binding law in California and perhaps other states in the 9th Circuit such as Washington State. Indeed, in Washington State, should the legislature enact same sex marriage, and then the Christianists thereafter prevail in a likely referendum, today's decision should render the referendum results unconstitutional if the result over turned the legislature's actions. Here are some highlights from Metro Weekly:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today affirmed the August 2010 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that California's 2008 amendment banning same-sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional, deciding the case on narrow grounds relating to the facts of the amendment's impact, which the court notes was to "eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California."

In today's decision, Judge Stephen Reinhardt writes for the court: We consider whether that amendment violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We conclude that it does.

Specifically, he wrote, "Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted."

As to the standing question -- whether the proponents had a right to asppeal the decision -- the court held that it was California's decision to make. "It is their prerogative, as independent sovereigns, to decide for themselves who may assert their interests and under what circumstances, and to bestow that authority accordingly." California, the court noted, decided that initiative proponents have such a right.

The court also denied the proponents' request that the trial court decision be vacated because Walker, the proponents asserted, should have recused himself because he is gay and had a long-term partner to whom he was not married.

The narrow legal grounds on which the court decided to affirm Walker's decision about the constitutionality of Proposition 8 were those established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans -- referenced as a possibility by Metro Weekly earlier today.

Reinhardt introduced the discussion of Romer by noting of California's amendment, "This is not the first time the voters of a state have enacted an initiative constitutional amendment that reduces the rights of gays and lesbians under state law." In Romer, Colorado voters adopted an amendment prohibiting state and local entities from passing sexual orientation protections. The U.S. Supreme Court struck Colorado's Amendment 2 down as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause because the amendment's aim was "not to further a proper legislative end but to make [LGB people] unequal to everyone else."

Reinhardt then wrote: "Proposition 8 is remarkably similar to Amendment 2." . . . . In concluding, Reinhardt wrote:

We do not doubt the importance of the more general questions presented to us concerning the rights of same-sex couples to marry, nor do we doubt that these questions will likely be resolved in other states, and for the nation as a whole, by other courts. For now, it suffices to conclude that the People of California may not, consistent with the Federal Constitution, add to their state constitution a provision that has no more practical effect than to strip gays and lesbians of their right to use the official designation that the State and society give to committed relationships, thereby adversely affecting the status and dignity of the members of a disfavored class.

Not surprisingly, the Christianists, professional Christians and their pandering whore-like puppets in the Republican Party are having convulsions and spewing spittle by the bucket full. The bleating and shrieking coming out of Southern Poverty Law Center registered anti-gay hate group Family Research Council is illustrative of the Christianist hysteria:

Today's ruling by a three-judge panel upheld a lower court decision by now-retired federal Judge Vaughn Walker in August 2010. Judge Walker later admitted he is himself a homosexual and has had a long-term partner, meaning that he potentially stood to personally benefit from the legalization of same-sex "marriage."

"Today's decision was disappointing but not surprising, coming from the most liberal Circuit Court in the country. This Hollywood-funded lawsuit, which seeks to impose San Francisco values on the entire country, may eventually reach the Supreme Court. This is not about constitutional governance but the insistence of a group of activists to force their will on their fellow citizens.

"This ruling substitutes judicial tyranny for the will of the people, who in the majority of states have amended their constitutions, as California did, to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

True to form, the religious extremists at FRC attribute to others their own desire to force all Americans to subscribe to and live their lives in accordance with their own fear and hate based religious beliefs.