Today at 10AM California time, we are expecting to hear the (latest) results of the Prop 8 trial. I recommend you don’t hold your breath- I won’t believe the decision’s out until I see it- but here’s a quick refresher course on the history of the course.
Before there was Prop 8, there was marriage equality. In May of 2008, the California supreme court ruled that laws barring same-sex couples from marrying was illegal, and marriage equality became legal in the state.
In an effort to counter this ruling, opponents of same-sex marriage equality petitioned to get Prop 8 on the election ballot in November 2008. With over a million signatures, marriage equality went up for a vote in California. Proposition 8, the official title of the clause on the ballot, defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman. Supporters of the proposition tried to change the wording of the initiative, stating it was prejudicial and argumentative. The case, Jansson v. Bowen, was thrown out of the courts. (Prop 8 supporters continued trying to get the wording changed. The official wording up read that Prop 8 “eliminated the right” for same-sex couples to marry). Ultimately, Prop 8 passed with 52% of the votes on yes. There was a (very small) upside: same-sex couples that were already married would remain so.
The next step was to take it back to the courts so Prop 8 could be repealed. And along came the much-talked-about case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, in which the two lawyers who went to the Supreme Court in 2000 in Bush v. Gore went head-to-head again. Interestingly enough, Bush’s lawyer, Theodore Olson, was arguing that Prop 8 needed to be struck down and marriage equality restored in CA.
On August 4, 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled to overturn Prop 8; we won! But not quite…less than a month after the decision, there was a hasty motion for a ‘stay’ on the decision, or a indefinite suspension on the court’s decision. The motion was heard by a 3-judge panel (proponents tried to get the most liberal of the judges kicked off the panel; this was denied). In December 2010, arguments for the stay were heard and now…we wait.
What’s been happening since December 2010? Well, the ninth circuit court, (the court with the 3-judge panel), certified a question the the CA supreme court: “Because California officials had declined to defend the law, the federal court asked the state court to decide whether the backers of a challenged initiative had “a particularized interest in the initiative’s validity or the authority to assert the State’s interest in the initiative’s validity” that would permit them to defend the law when state officials refuse to do so.” (Source: Wikipedia).
The Supreme Court then heard oral arguments on the case and ruled that non-governmental proponents are allowed to defend it.
The Ninth Circuit Court is expected to release an opinion today.
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