BREAKING!!! Prop 8 in California ruled unconstitutional!!

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The Ninth District panel ruled that taking away the existing rights of a minority is not kosher. Read the whole story at Prop8TrialTracker.

The ruling applies only to California’s special circumstances, but if it stands, it could put the kibosh on efforts in states like Iowa and New Hampshire to repeal marriage equality.

The proponents have a week to ask for an en banc review. If they don’t get one, they have 90 days to ask for a Supreme Court review.

Thank you, Ninth Circuit! I really needed some good news today.

[crossposted at DoorbellQueen]

2 thoughts on “BREAKING!!! Prop 8 in California ruled unconstitutional!!”

  2. Epluribusunum

    One step closer to full equality.

    This ruling was quite narrow, but that actually makes it apply more broadly in the long run. This piece from the Wall Street Journal explains why:

    The trial judge in the Perry case held that same-sex marriage was itself protected by the U.S. Constitution. But the Ninth Circuit judges set aside this holding and decided the case on “narrow grounds.” They found that Proposition 8 was analogous to Amendment 2, a Colorado ballot measure that the Supreme Court struck down in Romer v. Evans (1996).

    Amendment 2 barred state and local government in the Centennial State from official actions “designed to protect the status of persons based on their ‘homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships.’ ” In a 6-3 ruling, the high court held that the amendment violated equal protection by “imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on a single named group.” The author of that decision was Anthony Kennedy.

    What was upheld yesterday was not the right to marriage equality, but something much more profound and important in terms of the likely Supreme Court hearing: The principle that animus toward a group does not justify carving out a special exception to discriminate against them.

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