Court to rule tomorrow if California’s gay marriage ban is constitutionally valid
A federal appeals court will rule tomorrow on whether California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage is constitutionally valid.
Prop 8, the 2008 voter initiative that banned gay and lesbian marriages has been the subject of constant legal battles.
In 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker in August, which ruled that the ban on gay marriage in California was wrong. The decision came after a lengthy “trial” of the arguments for and against allowing gay couples to marry. “The evidence presented at trial and the position of the representatives of the State of California show that an injunction against enforcement of Proposition 8 is in the public’s interest,” Judge Walker wrote at the time. He initially ordered for gay marriages to resume in the state with almost immediate effect.
An appeal to his decision was immediately launched but
unusually, the official ‘defendants’ of that appeal, then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney-General Jerry Brown, refused to defend the ban.
It is likely that regardless of tomorrow’s ruling, there will be an appeal of the judgement of some kind. 40 states have some sort of ban on gay marriage.
