California Supreme Court Marriage Ruling: Digest of Coverage
This post will be updated.
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The Opinion is here: http://www.alliancealert.org/2008/20080515.pdf
The AP has filed this report: California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban.
The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation’s largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings.
The justices’ 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion.
The LA Times: California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban.
. . . In 2000, 61% of California voters approved Proposition 22, which said that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.”
Since the ballot measure, California has passed one of the strongest domestic partnership laws in the country, giving registered same-sex couples most of the rights of married people . . .
The California Supreme Court has six Republican appointees and one Democrat. Scholars have described the court under the leadership of Chief Justice Ronald M. George as cautious and moderately conservative.
The Sacramento Bee: Gay marriage legal in California, court declares.
Reuters: Top California court rules in favor of gay marriage.
“Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest,” the court said in a majority decision.
San Diego Union-Tribune: State Supreme Court strikes down gay marriage ban
The opinion came two months after an extraordinary 3½ hour session of oral arguments, in which the seven-member court seemed closely divided on the issue.
CNN: California ban on same-sex marriage struck down
“The government should promote and encourage strong families,” said Glen Lavy of the Alliance Defense Fund. “The voters realize that defining marriage as one man and one woman is important because the government should not, by design, deny a child both a mother and father.”
Inside Bay Area: Court overturns same-sex marriage ban
Associate Justice Marvin Baxter, joined by Associate Justice Ming Chin, dissented from the majority. “If such a profound change in this ancient social institution is to occur, the People and their representatives, who represent the public conscience, should have the right, and the responsibility, to control the pace of that change through the democratic process,” Baxter wrote, noting the Family Code sections restricting marriage to heterosexual couples serve this purpose while “(t)he majority’s decision erroneously usurps it.
World Net Daily: Black Robes trash traditional marriage
California Assemblyman Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, said, “With the passage of Proposition 22, the voters of California agreed that marriage is ‘between a man and a woman.’ PERIOD. The court’s decision today is further proof that some activist judges value their own beliefs over the will of the people.”
ABA Journal: California Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Marriage Ban
In footnote 52 of the opinion, the court said its decision does not mean the constitutional right to marry applies to polygamous or incestuous relationships. “Past judicial decisions explain why our nation’s culture has considered the latter types of relationships inimical to the mutually supportive and healthy family relationships promoted by the constitutional right to marry,” the opinion said.
New York Times: California Court Affirms Right to Gay Marriage
“But a bare majority of this court,” Justice Baxter wrote, “not satisfied with the pace of democratic change, now abruptly forestalls that process and substitutes, by judicial fiat, its own social policy views for those expressed by the people themselves.”
ABC 7: Same sex couples happy with court ruling
“Well we are very disappointed with the ruling because it is very difficult to read the direction that the court was going to go. And I think that is why 1.1 million Californians went out and signed a petition to put this issue on the ballot in November. It is to take the issue away from the courts and for the people to decide what marriage means,” said Attorney for Propostion 22 Defense Fund Andrew Pugno.
One News Now: ‘Judicial fiat’ triumphs in CA marriage ruling
Pro-family activist Matt Barber says the California Supreme Court betrayed “We the People” and engaged in the “worst kind of judicial activism” earlier today by overturning the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in March 2000.
AP: California’s top court overturns gay marriage ban
The challenge for gay rights advocates, however, is not over.
A coalition of religious and social conservative groups is attempting to put a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine laws banning gay marriage in the state constitution.
The Secretary of State is expected to rule by the end of June whether the sponsors gathered enough signatures to qualify the marriage amendment, similar to ones enacted in 26 other states.
The conservative Alliance Defense Fund says it plans to ask the justices for a stay of their decision until after the fall election, said Glen Lavy, senior counsel for the group.
Reuters South Africa: Top California court supports gay marriage
But the Judicial Council of California, the state courts’ administrative office, said the ruling is final in 30 days and municipalities around the state must prepare to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
“The decision directs state officials who supervise the enforcement of the state’s marriage laws to ensure that local officials comply with the court’s ruling and permit same-sex couples to marry,” the statement said.
Catholic News Agency: Ban on homosexual marriage in California dissolved
A coalition of religious and social conservative groups is attempting to put a measure on the November ballot that would secure California’s current laws banning gay marriage in the state constitution.
The Secretary of State is expected to rule by the end of June on whether the 1.1 million signatures gathered by the coalition qualify the constitutional amendment to be placed on the November 2008 ballot.
Upon hearing the news of the California Supreme Court decision, the Alliance for Marriage (AFM) issued a call to Californians to lend their support to their state’s marriage amendment and called on the U.S. Congress to pass an AFM-drafted federal Marriage Protection Amendment.
Politico: Pelosi hails gay marriage ruling as ‘milestone’
Pelosi said she would “encourage California citizens to respect the court’s decision, and I continue to strongly oppose any ballot measure that would write discrimination into the state constitution. Today is a significant milestone for which all Californians can take pride.”
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is the first Republican leader out with a statement, saying “this ruling effectively opens the door to allowing the opinion of this state’s court on same-sex marriage to stand as the law of the land for the entire country.”
PRO FAMILY ORGANIZATIONS
Family Research Council: Ruling Underscores importance of November’s Ballot Initiative Protecting Marriage
“The California Supreme Court has taken a jackhammer to the democratic process, and the right of the people to affect change in public policy. Four judges discarded the votes of 4,618,673 Californians who approved the state’s ‘Defense of Marriage Act.’ Voters understand that children should not be deprived of a mother or a father,” added Perkins.
Concerned Women for America: California Supreme Court Betrays “We the People” on Marriage
Matt Barber, CWA Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said “The California Supreme Court has engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism today, abandoning its role as an objective interpreter of the law and, instead, legislating from the bench. It’s absurd to suggest that the framers of the California state constitution could have ever imagined there’d be a day when so-called ‘same-sex marriage’ would even be conceptualized, much less seriously considered. If anyone then had suggested the ridiculous notion, early Californians would have laughed their smocks off.
Liberty Counsel: The California Supreme Court Rewrites the Definition of Marriage – California voters may have the last word
Justice Baxter (joined by Justice Chin), wrote: “I cannot join the majority’s holding that the California Constitution gives same-sex couples a right to marry. In reaching this decision, I believe, the majority violates the separation of powers, and thereby commits profound error,” wrote Baxter and Chin. In a concurring and dissenting opinion, Justice Baxter dissented in the conclusion, stating: “I cannot join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the Legislature’s own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the People’s will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference.”
Campaign for Children and Families: California Pro-Family Response to State Supreme Court Ordering Homosexual “Marriage” Legalization
By bowing down to homosexual activists and the rebel city of San Francisco, the California Supreme Court has exchanged the rule of law for the rule of unbridled power to destroy all that is good and sacred. However, the terrible example of homosexual “weddings” should be short-lived.
Faith and Action: California Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Proves it’s Time to Target State Court Judges
Today’s ruling by the California Supreme Court ordering the state to legalize a man marrying a man and woman marrying a woman demonstrates the need for religious conservatives to pay close attention to state supreme court judges, especially during election campaigns. California citizens can take bad judges off the bench by voting no when their names appear on the ballot. Other states use different means for electing or retaining supreme court judges. Citizens must get directly involved in choosing who will sit on their highest state courts.
Thomas More Law Center: TMLC Condemns California Supreme Court’s Mandate of Homosexual Marriages – Vows to Fight in November
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center commented, “This outrageous ruling shows how our most cherished institutions are being destroyed by the tyrannical actions of an out-of-control judiciary. The California Supreme Court took judicial activism to a whole new level. When four judges can overturn the vote of the people protecting marriage, the Constitution’s guarantee of a Republican form of government becomes meaningless. This battle is not over.”
Alliance for Marriage: California High Court Decision Striking Down Marriage Underscores Need For Congress To Pass AFM’s Marriage Protection Amendment
“The future of marriage in California should be determined among the 36 million residents of the State of California — not by the personal, closed-door deliberation of seven judges,” said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an Advisory Board Member of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation. “For several decades, America has been wandering in a wilderness of social problems caused by family disintegration. Tragically, as bad as our current situation may be, today’s decision by the Court can only make the situation dramatically worse.”
“While the ruling on marriage was in itself momentous, the ruling on ’suspect classification’ was potentially even more significant, as it casts into serious question any state law or policy that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Eugene Volokh @ The Volokh Conspiracy:
The opinion is entirely based on claims under the California Constitution, and does not rely on federal constitutional claims. This seems that the U.S. Supreme Court cannot review this; and it also means that a state constitutional amendment — which seems likely to be on the ballot this November — could overturn the decision.
But it seems to me that decisions such as the California, Massachusetts, and Vermont ones illustrate that it’s a mistake to just factually dismiss the claims that slippage is possible. When we’re dealing with a legal system that’s built on analogy and precedent (both binding precedent and persuasive precedent), slippery slope risks have to be taken seriously.
Orin Kerr @ The Volokh Conspiracy:
Applying strict scrutiny to the California marriage statute, the court concludes that:
“[T]he purpose underlying differential treatment of opposite-sex and same-sex couples embodied in California’s current marriage statutes — the interest in retaining the traditional and well-established definition of marriage — cannot properly be viewed as a compelling state interest for purposes of the equal protection clause, or as necessary to serve such an interest. . . . Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.”
Rod Dreher: Gay marriage legal in California
I don’t have much to say about this that I haven’t already said many times before. The battle for cultural conservatives has been lost. It was lost when the Republican Congress repeatedly failed to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment — which John McCain opposed, note well, and which George W. Bush barely lifted a finger to push for, even though Rove cynically goosed GOP turnout in 2004 on the issue — and send it to the states for ratification. That horse has left the barn. True, it is possible that states may pass amendments to state constitutions that state Supreme Courts could not overturn. But that will just be a delaying tactic. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court will decide this one, and culturally, conservatives are losing this one.
Rick Hansen @ Election Law Blog
This helps John McCain because those conservative voters may not have come out in great numbers for him, but they will come out now to vote for this amendment, and they are more likely to vote for McCain than for the Democrat once they are already voting. That’s not to say that California will go red, but it is to say that the Democratic nominee will have to devote more resources to this very expensive to campaign in state.
None of this, of course, is really surprising anymore. It is almost a given. It is a given. But, just in case you weren’t sure what to call this sad state of affairs, there it is: judicial oligarchy. Read it and weep. But do so privately; you never know who might sue you for publicly expressing anguish over the demise of traditional, commonsensical morality and governance.
John Nichols @ The Nation: California Decision Makes Same-Sex Marriage a 2008 Issue
The fact is that the Democratic party has in recent years moved tentatively toward being a pro-gay rights party — just as it moved tentatively in the 1950s toward being a pro-civil rights party. The process has been slow, and it remains incomplete. But most Americans see Democrats as supporting gay rights, just as they see Republicans as opposing equality.
The majority itself concedes that “[f]rom the beginning of California statehood, the legal institution of marriage has been understood to refer to a relationship between a man and a woman.” But it fails to recognize that that is an essential characteristic of the very “right to marry” that it is construing—and that no one, until recent years, would have pretended otherwise.
Is there anything in the court’s concocted “right to marry” that would prevent it from being invoked by, say, practitioners of adult incest or plural marriage? On the latter: Oh, sure, the court repeatedly speaks of “couples”, but that’s because no plural marriage was at issue. What in the court’s reasoning, what in its principles will prevent the extension of the right to marry to those whose own sense of “personal autonomy” and of “family” calls for plural marriage? (Perhaps there is something: I haven’t yet read carefully through the entire 121-page majority opinion.)
American Constitution Society: Quotations from and Reactions on the California Same-Sex Marriage Decision
Glenn Greenwald: California’s marriage ruling — what it means and what it doesn’t mean
As the Court made clear, whether someone believes that “marriage” should include same-sex couples is completely irrelevant. It is equally irrelevant whether one believes that the U.S. Constitution can be read to require same-sex marriages. There is one issue, and only one issue, that matters here: are the provisions of the California State Constitution, in light of how they have been interpreted by that state’s Supreme Court in prior decisions, violated by the exclusion of same-sex couples from the legal institution of “marriage”?
PFLAG: Families Applaud California Ruling in Favor of Marriage Equality
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) today applauded a California State Supreme Court ruling in favor of full marriage equality for same-sex couples. The 4-3 decision, issued earlier today, follows lawsuits by fifteen couples who challenged the constitutionality of the state’s marriage ban. The couples, along with Equality California and the Our Family Coalition, were represented by lead counsel from the National Center for Lesbian Rights along with counsel from Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, Heller Ehrman LLP and the Law Office of David C. Codell.
ACLU: California Supreme Court Issues Historic Ruling
The court ruled that lesbian and gay couples are entitled to the same fundamental right to marry as heterosexual couples as protected by the California constitution. The decision explicitly strikes down Proposition 22, a voter passed initiative that passed in 2000 that sought to limit marriage to only between a man and woman. Under California rules of procedure, the decision can not go into effect for at least 30 days.
Freedom to Marry: California Ends Gay Couples’ Exclusion From Marriage
“This righteous decision of this most respected state high court will give Americans the chance to experience what they’ve begun to see for the last few years in Massachusetts, South Africa, Canada, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands – the lived reality that ending exclusion from marriage helps families and harms no one,” said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry.
Human Rights Campaign: California Becomes Second State to Recognize Marriage Equality for Same-Sex Couples
A growing number of states are providing relationship recognition to same-sex couples. California joins Massachusetts to become the second state to recognize civil marriage for same-sex couples. Five other states provide same-sex couples with access to all the state level benefits and responsibilities of marriage, either through civil unions or domestic partnerships. Three other states and Washington, D.C. provide same-sex couples with at least some of the basic benefits and protections made available to married heterosexual couples. However, because of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex couples do not receive federal rights and benefits in any state.
Lambda Legal: Victory! CA High Court Says Same-Sex Couples Can Marry
In its powerful decision, the court said, “In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and their central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all couples, without regard to their sexual orientation.”
National Center for Human Rights: Lesbian and Gay Couples Win Freedom to Marry in California
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: Historic California Supreme Court decision supporting the freedom to marry