A FEDERAL appeals court panel has thrown out a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage passed in 2008, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the ban, known as Proposition 8, violated the constitutional rights of gay men and lesbians in California.
The three-judge panel issued its ruling in San Francisco, upholding a 2010 decision by Judge Vaughn R Walker, who had been the chief judge of the US district court of the northern district of California but has since retired. The panel found that Proposition 8 – passed by a vote of 52 per cent to 48 per cent – violated the equal protection rights of two same-sex couples who brought the suit. The proposition placed a specific prohibition in the state constitution against marriage between two people of the same sex.
But the 2-to-1 decision was much more narrowly framed than the sweeping ruling of Walker, who asserted that barring same-sex couples from marrying was a violation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution. The two have stated explicitly that they were not deciding whether there was a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, instead ruling that the disparate treatment of married couples and domestic partners since the passage of Proposition 8 violated the constitution’s equal protection clause.
“Although the constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different people differently,” Judge Stephen R Reinhardt wrote in the decision. “There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.”
“All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licences and thus legally to use the designation ‘marriage’,” the judge wrote, adding: “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”
In his dissenting opinion, Judge N Randy Smith wrote that the court was overreaching in nullifying a voter initiative.
Whatever the legal nuances of the decision – and lawyers were battling about how far-reaching it would prove to be – the decision reverberated throughout political circles, from the presidential campaign to state legislatures.
Mitt Romney denounced the decision as an attack by "unelected judges" on "traditional marriage" and predicted that the supreme court would decide the issue. "That prospect underscores the vital importance of this election and the movement to preserve our values," he said. – ( New York Times)