9th Circuit to Rule Tomorrow on Proposition 8

The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit will release its ruling on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and other related legal issues tomorrow at 10:30AM PST. In addition to the larger constitutionality issue, the Court will likely first address the issue of whether Protect Marriage having standing to defend Proposition 8 at all. Several U. S. Supreme Court rulings suggest that it does not under applicable federal law. However, when the 9th Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to address the issue, that court decided that Protect Marriage does have standing as a matter of state law.

If the 9th Circuit decides that Protect Marriage has standing, the next issue is whether or not Judge Walker's decision declaring that Prop 8 violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution should be affirmed. To reverse Judge Walker's ruling, the 9th Circuit must find either (1) that Walker misapplied the law, or (2) that his decision was not supported by the facts presented at trial. On this latter issue, the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and its legal team of Ted Olson and David Boies offered a great deal of expert and testimony and historical and sociological evidence against Prop 8 at trial. This evidence was left more or less unanswered by Protect Marriage which basically introduced religious belief and religious based bigotry as the main reason to support Prop 8.

Be assured that as soon as the opinion is released and I have time to review it, I will be giving my thoughts on the matter.