Opponents of Prop. 8 rebuffed by legal system

   The California Supreme Court ruled to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage 6-1 last Tuesday.

   Proposition 8, passed in November, defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. The court also ruled that the marriages of about 18,000 same-sex couples that occurred before the court’s decision will remain valid.

   Dissolving marriages retroactively to conform to Prop. 8 would be “throwing property rights into disarray, destroying the legal interests and expectations of thousands of couples and their families, and potentially undermining the ability of citizens to plan their lives according to the law as it has been determined by this state’s highest court,” wrote Chief Justice Ronald George.

   Between May 4 and Nov. 4 of last year, what the gay community called their “Summer of Love,” thousands flocked to California to marry their partners, anticipating that Californians would likely vote to ban gay marriage. 

   Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the San Francisco courthouse while the decision was being made, yelling “shame on you.”

   “I felt that my equality was taken away from me. They kept their equality and took mine away. I’m not angry, I’m just distraught. The fact that they kept my marriage valid is very nice. But it’s not about my marriage. It’s all about equality –and they took that away from us today,” said Shelly Bailes, who married partner Ellen Pontac last summer.

   Supporters of Prop. 8 applauded the court, saying the decision was constitutional and protects the traditional definition of marriage.

   “In America, we respect the results of fair elections,” said Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund.

   “The California Supreme Court arrived at the only correct conclusion available,” Nimocks said.

   The issue now is the three categories of unions under California law: Marriage between a man and a woman, legal marriage between same-sex couples, and same-sex couples who are excluded from the privilege of marriage. 

   But many say that it is likely to become a civil rights issue in the future, as same-sex couples are denied the equal rights of those couples who married in 2008, when gay marriage was legal.

   Marriage equality groups have already begun drafting plans for a 2010 ballot initiative to repeal the Supreme Court’s decision.

   “Promising equal treatment to some is fundamentally different from promising equal treatment for all.

   Promising treatment that is almost equal is fundamentally different from ensuring truly equal treatment,” said Justice Carlos Moreno, who was under consideration as President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, and was the lone dissenter.

   Theodore Olson, the U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, and David Boies, a lawyer for former vice president Al Gore, have filed a federal lawsuit to hold the decision, saying the proposition is a violation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

   Protesters met at the steps of the Civic Center in Santa Ana to voice their opinion at an event organized by the Orange County Equality Coalition.

   “I think this is the end of the line for California. Whether we go back in 2010 or 2012, we have to go back to the ballot box,” Katherine Darmer, legal adviser for OCEC and a law professor at Chapman University said.