Protesters cheer the decision to overturn Prop 8.

In 2008, the people of California went to the polls and passed a statewide constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage.  Well now, according to the judges at the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that constitutional amendment is unconstitutional.  Judges overturned Proposition 8, California’s ban on gay marriage, on grounds that it was discriminatory according to decisions already handed down by the United States Supreme Court.  Prop 8 supporters have vowed to appeal.

“Proposition 8 operates with no apparent purpose but to impose on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majority’s private disapproval of them and their relationships,” wrote Judge Stephen Reinhardt in the decision, which is based on a 1996 United States Supreme Court ruling that says a majority cannot take a minority’s rights away.

Of course, the thornier issue is that the amendment, limited only to gay marriage and not to domestic partner rights, child custody/adoption agreements, and other gay rights issues, was so limited in scope and that gays and lesbians have so many other protected rights under California law, that Prop 8 wasn’t actually discriminatory any more so than laws designed to prevent incest, bigamy/polygamy, age limits before marriage, and any other number of legal hoops that couples must jump through prior to marriage.  The dissenting judge, N. Randy Smith, had made the argument that California voters couldn’t have been voting out of some anti-gay sentiment, because gay rights are already so well protected by California’s many other state laws.

It goes without saying that this case will be back before judges soon (and will no doubt take years to go away).

Tags: law and order, unusual laws, Prop 8, Proposition 8, California constitutional amendment declared unconstitutional, Prop 8 declared unconstitutional, gay marriage, anti-gay marriage law declared unconstitutional, constitutional law, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,  Judge Stephen Reinhardt, United States Supreme Court, N. Randy Smith

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