Mike McKee reports on the Recorder:
Same-sex couples excited by the California Supreme Court’s two-week-old decision declaring their right to wed are already booking dates to get licenses. But what will happen to those marriages if voters approve a proposed constitutional amendment in November that would restrict marriage to the union of a man and a woman?
There is no clear answer, but attorneys on both sides of the issue have staked out their positions and are ready for a fight. Gay-rights lawyers say the marriages would remain valid, conservative groups insist they would be nullified, and many on both sides predict there could be complicated legal battles to resolve the impasse . . .
“The plain language of the marriage initiative, which expressly states that only opposite-sex marriages will be ‘recognized’ in California, strongly implies that previously obtained same-sex marriages would no longer be recognized for any purpose,” Alliance Defense Fund attorney Timothy Chandler of Folsom, Calif., wrote. “Under this interpretation of the marriage initiative, the granting of these ‘marriage’ licenses would have been, for all intents and purposes, a futile act.” . . .
