It's been a busy news day on the West coast.
From what I am gathering, it does NOT look promising and WE WILL HAVE ANOTHER LONG ROAD AHEAD OF US!!!
Here's some of the coverage on the Proposition 8 and California State Supreme Court hearings:
From The Los Angeles Times:
California Supreme Court signals mixed response to Proposition 8
As foes and supporters of the gay-marriage ban argue before the court, the justices appear ready to uphold the ban, but they also sound reluctant to invalidate same-sex marriages already performed.
By Maura Dolan and Carol J. Williams
2:25 PM PST, March 5, 2009
Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles — The California Supreme Court appeared ready today to uphold Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage, but also seemed likely to decide -- perhaps unanimously -- that the marriages of same-sex couples who wed before the election would remain valid.
During a three-hour televised hearing in San Francisco, only Justices Carlos R. Moreno and Kathryn Mickle Werdegar suggested that the court could overturn the marriage ban as an illegal constitutional revision.
Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who wrote last year's historic ruling allowing same-sex marriage, noted that constitutional amendments have taken away individual rights in the past. He also emphasized that the state Constitution that allowed the court to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage has now been changed by Proposition 8.
"Today we have a different state Constitution," George said.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard, usually a strong supporter of gay rights, had voted against accepting the legal challenges that characterized Proposition 8 as an illegal constitutional revision but was willing to hear arguments on whether existing same-sex marriages should remain valid.
Today's hearing explained Kennard's vote.
She indicated over and over that she believes Proposition 8 was a mere amendment that the people of California had the power to enact. She also noted that last year's marriage ruling, which gave sexual orientation the same constitutional status as race and gender, would continue to be the law, even with Proposition 8. She called the heightened constitutional protection for sexual orientation "a very important holding."
"Is it still your view that the sky has fallen and gays and lesbians are left with nothing?" she asked a gay-rights lawyer.
Kennard told them they also had the right to return to voters with their own initiative.
Even the court's conservatives appeared ready to vote to uphold existing marriages.
Justice Carol A. Corrigan, who voted against giving gays marriage rights last May, said couples who wed before the election relied on the law of the state at the time. Aren't those couples "entitled, if nothing else as a matter of equity, to rely on the law as it existed at the time they married?" she said.
George is often a swing vote on the court, sometimes siding with the court's conservative wing and other times, particularly in civil cases, voting with the more liberal justices.
The court is considering legal challenges to Proposition 8. If the court upholds the measure, it also must decide the fate of an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place before voters reinstated a marriage ban in November.
A ruling from the justices is due withing 90 days.
The state high court ruled 4-3 last May 15 that same-sex couples should be entitled to marry. George wrote the ruling, which was signed by Justices Kennard, Werdegar and Moreno.
Justices Marvin R. Baxter, Ming W. Chin and Corrigan voted against overturning the state's previous ban, arguing that the matter should be left to voters.
Six of the court's justices were appointed by Republican governors. Moreno is the only Democratic appointee.
After Proposition 8 was passed by voters in November, gay rights lawyers challenged the measure as an impermissible constitutional revision rather than a more limited amendment. Only Moreno voted to put the measure on hold pending a decision on the challenges.
The anti-Proposition 8 lawyers took the floor first.
Raymond C. Marshall of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center argued that nothing is more fundamental than the equal protection doctrine as he sought to cast Proposition 8 as an unconstitutional deprivation of the right to marry targeted against gays.
"This is the first time a ballot initiative will have been used to take away a fundamental right from a suspect class," he told the justices.
Michael Maroko, another anti-Proposition 8 speaker, told the justices that "if the state stuck its finger into the marriage business, it should do it equally. . . . If gay couples don't have the right to marry, straight couples shouldn't either."
George asked those arguing that Proposition 8 was an illegal constitutional revision if their basic problem wasn't that "it's just too easy to amend the California Constitution," noting it has been changed more than 500 times, compared with 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
George seemed to signal that the justices' hands may be tied in invalidating ballot initiatives that amend the constitution, as Proposition 8 did. "That is the system we have to live with until and unless it is changed," the chief justice told the initiative opponents.
Former Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, arguing in favor of Proposition 8, reached the microphone about two hours into the hearing.
Claiming the right to amend the state Constitution as fundamental, Starr urged the court to refrain from interfering with the people's vote against legal recognition of gay marriage.
The justices debated with Starr whether the people's power to amend their Constitution trumps the court's right to invalidate Proposition 8 on grounds that it unconstitutionally denies a fundamental right to gay citizens.
"One of the inalienable rights articulated in the Constitution is control over the Constitution," Starr said.
Asked by Corrigan if the people's power to amend the Constitution extended even to changes deemed "unwise," Starr said it did, and that it remained up to the people to decide what was or wasn't a wise amendment.
"It's not for another branch to say otherwise?" Corrigan asked.
"Absolutely," Starr told the justices. He said "governors change, legislatures change, but the enduring structure is there to protect liberty."
Kennard asked Starr whether invalidation of the 18,000 gay marriages performed in the state last year when the practice was legal wouldn't violate contract laws and due process as guaranteed by the federal Constitution.
"I don't believe Proposition 8 invalidates those marriages," Starr said. "What it does do is deny recognition."
Meanwhile, a lawyer for state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown posed a different challenge to Proposition 8, rejecting the debate over whether the November vote was a legal amendment or an illegal revision of the state Constitution by declaring it unconstitutional in either case.
Neither an amendment, which needs just a simple voter majority, nor a revision, which must be passed by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature, can deprive people of a fundamental right, including the right to marry, said Christopher E. Krueger on behalf of Brown's office.
The state Supreme Court has rejected at least six revision challenges of initiatives, including measures that reinstated the death penalty, changed tax law (Proposition 13) and imposed term limits.
In 1948, the court overturned an initiative as an illegal revision because it made a wide array of changes in the state Constitution. The court struck down another initiative as a revision in 1990 because it would have required the courts to apply federal law when determining the rights of criminal defendants.
The hearing, on a damp, chilly morning, drew a crowd of several hundred people outside the court building, many of them carrying signs for or against Proposition 8.
Dan Burton, a retired air traffic controller from San Clemente, traveled to San Francisco on Wednesday night to protest in favor of Proposition 8, calling it "a watershed issue. . . . We hope the will of the people will not be subverted by judicial activism."
Close at hand, another protester waved a sign with the implied threat, "Remember Rose Bird?" As they did with Bird, the Supreme Court justice who was ousted over her stance against the death penalty, conservatives have threatened to recall justices if they overturn Proposition 8.
Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ exhorted the crowd at an interfaith prayer service to "Thank God, everybody."
"You're bigger God, much bigger, than the small religious boxes that we put you [in]," she declared. "We ask you for the freedom today . . . freedom to have our relations boldly without fear of reprisal."
The TV screen outside the courthouse malfunctioned briefly, causing George to sound like Bugs Bunny, eliciting laughter from the crowd. At another point, the screen went dark. The crowd chanted "No on 8."
About 75 people watched the hearing broadcast at the West Hollywood Park Auditorium, occasionally clapping, cheering or booing.
maura.dolan@latimes.com
carol.williams@latimes.com
As foes and supporters of the gay-marriage ban argue before the court, the justices appear ready to uphold the ban, but they also sound reluctant to invalidate same-sex marriages already performed.
By Maura Dolan and Carol J. Williams
2:25 PM PST, March 5, 2009
Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles — The California Supreme Court appeared ready today to uphold Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage, but also seemed likely to decide -- perhaps unanimously -- that the marriages of same-sex couples who wed before the election would remain valid.
During a three-hour televised hearing in San Francisco, only Justices Carlos R. Moreno and Kathryn Mickle Werdegar suggested that the court could overturn the marriage ban as an illegal constitutional revision.
Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who wrote last year's historic ruling allowing same-sex marriage, noted that constitutional amendments have taken away individual rights in the past. He also emphasized that the state Constitution that allowed the court to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage has now been changed by Proposition 8.
"Today we have a different state Constitution," George said.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard, usually a strong supporter of gay rights, had voted against accepting the legal challenges that characterized Proposition 8 as an illegal constitutional revision but was willing to hear arguments on whether existing same-sex marriages should remain valid.
Today's hearing explained Kennard's vote.
She indicated over and over that she believes Proposition 8 was a mere amendment that the people of California had the power to enact. She also noted that last year's marriage ruling, which gave sexual orientation the same constitutional status as race and gender, would continue to be the law, even with Proposition 8. She called the heightened constitutional protection for sexual orientation "a very important holding."
"Is it still your view that the sky has fallen and gays and lesbians are left with nothing?" she asked a gay-rights lawyer.
Kennard told them they also had the right to return to voters with their own initiative.
Even the court's conservatives appeared ready to vote to uphold existing marriages.
Justice Carol A. Corrigan, who voted against giving gays marriage rights last May, said couples who wed before the election relied on the law of the state at the time. Aren't those couples "entitled, if nothing else as a matter of equity, to rely on the law as it existed at the time they married?" she said.
George is often a swing vote on the court, sometimes siding with the court's conservative wing and other times, particularly in civil cases, voting with the more liberal justices.
The court is considering legal challenges to Proposition 8. If the court upholds the measure, it also must decide the fate of an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place before voters reinstated a marriage ban in November.
A ruling from the justices is due withing 90 days.
The state high court ruled 4-3 last May 15 that same-sex couples should be entitled to marry. George wrote the ruling, which was signed by Justices Kennard, Werdegar and Moreno.
Justices Marvin R. Baxter, Ming W. Chin and Corrigan voted against overturning the state's previous ban, arguing that the matter should be left to voters.
Six of the court's justices were appointed by Republican governors. Moreno is the only Democratic appointee.
After Proposition 8 was passed by voters in November, gay rights lawyers challenged the measure as an impermissible constitutional revision rather than a more limited amendment. Only Moreno voted to put the measure on hold pending a decision on the challenges.
The anti-Proposition 8 lawyers took the floor first.
Raymond C. Marshall of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center argued that nothing is more fundamental than the equal protection doctrine as he sought to cast Proposition 8 as an unconstitutional deprivation of the right to marry targeted against gays.
"This is the first time a ballot initiative will have been used to take away a fundamental right from a suspect class," he told the justices.
Michael Maroko, another anti-Proposition 8 speaker, told the justices that "if the state stuck its finger into the marriage business, it should do it equally. . . . If gay couples don't have the right to marry, straight couples shouldn't either."
George asked those arguing that Proposition 8 was an illegal constitutional revision if their basic problem wasn't that "it's just too easy to amend the California Constitution," noting it has been changed more than 500 times, compared with 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
George seemed to signal that the justices' hands may be tied in invalidating ballot initiatives that amend the constitution, as Proposition 8 did. "That is the system we have to live with until and unless it is changed," the chief justice told the initiative opponents.
Former Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, arguing in favor of Proposition 8, reached the microphone about two hours into the hearing.
Claiming the right to amend the state Constitution as fundamental, Starr urged the court to refrain from interfering with the people's vote against legal recognition of gay marriage.
The justices debated with Starr whether the people's power to amend their Constitution trumps the court's right to invalidate Proposition 8 on grounds that it unconstitutionally denies a fundamental right to gay citizens.
"One of the inalienable rights articulated in the Constitution is control over the Constitution," Starr said.
Asked by Corrigan if the people's power to amend the Constitution extended even to changes deemed "unwise," Starr said it did, and that it remained up to the people to decide what was or wasn't a wise amendment.
"It's not for another branch to say otherwise?" Corrigan asked.
"Absolutely," Starr told the justices. He said "governors change, legislatures change, but the enduring structure is there to protect liberty."
Kennard asked Starr whether invalidation of the 18,000 gay marriages performed in the state last year when the practice was legal wouldn't violate contract laws and due process as guaranteed by the federal Constitution.
"I don't believe Proposition 8 invalidates those marriages," Starr said. "What it does do is deny recognition."
Meanwhile, a lawyer for state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown posed a different challenge to Proposition 8, rejecting the debate over whether the November vote was a legal amendment or an illegal revision of the state Constitution by declaring it unconstitutional in either case.
Neither an amendment, which needs just a simple voter majority, nor a revision, which must be passed by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature, can deprive people of a fundamental right, including the right to marry, said Christopher E. Krueger on behalf of Brown's office.
The state Supreme Court has rejected at least six revision challenges of initiatives, including measures that reinstated the death penalty, changed tax law (Proposition 13) and imposed term limits.
In 1948, the court overturned an initiative as an illegal revision because it made a wide array of changes in the state Constitution. The court struck down another initiative as a revision in 1990 because it would have required the courts to apply federal law when determining the rights of criminal defendants.
The hearing, on a damp, chilly morning, drew a crowd of several hundred people outside the court building, many of them carrying signs for or against Proposition 8.
Dan Burton, a retired air traffic controller from San Clemente, traveled to San Francisco on Wednesday night to protest in favor of Proposition 8, calling it "a watershed issue. . . . We hope the will of the people will not be subverted by judicial activism."
Close at hand, another protester waved a sign with the implied threat, "Remember Rose Bird?" As they did with Bird, the Supreme Court justice who was ousted over her stance against the death penalty, conservatives have threatened to recall justices if they overturn Proposition 8.
Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ exhorted the crowd at an interfaith prayer service to "Thank God, everybody."
"You're bigger God, much bigger, than the small religious boxes that we put you [in]," she declared. "We ask you for the freedom today . . . freedom to have our relations boldly without fear of reprisal."
The TV screen outside the courthouse malfunctioned briefly, causing George to sound like Bugs Bunny, eliciting laughter from the crowd. At another point, the screen went dark. The crowd chanted "No on 8."
About 75 people watched the hearing broadcast at the West Hollywood Park Auditorium, occasionally clapping, cheering or booing.
maura.dolan@latimes.com
carol.williams@latimes.com
From The San Francisco Chronicle updated at 12:20 pm PST:
(03-05) 12:20 PST SAN FRANCISCO --
California Supreme Court justices directed sharp questioning today at attorneys seeking to overturn Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage.
The hearing lasted three hours and 10 minutes, wrapping up just after noon. Now the court has 90 days to issue a ruling.
Justice Joyce Kennard, one of the justices in the majority of the 4-3 ruling last year that legalized gay and lesbian marriages - a decision that voters overturned in approving Prop. 8 in November - said at one point that opponents of the measure would have the court choose between "two rights ... the inalienable right to marry and the right of the people to change the constitution as they see fit. And what I'm picking up from the oral argument in this case is this court should willy-nilly disregard the will of the people."
Kennard was the only justice who voted in November not to hear the challenge to Prop. 8, which was brought by several same-sex couples and by local governments led by the city of San Francisco.
Shannon Minter, an attorney representing the same-sex couples, was the first lawyer to deliver arguments when today's court hearing got under way at 9 a.m. in San Francisco.
He told the justices that their decision last year legalizing gay and lesbian marriages was "a resounding and eloquent affirmation of our Constitution's foundational guarantee of equal citizenship. It is today's case that will determine whether future generations of Californians can continue to count on that guarantee."
"Relegating same-sex couples to domestic partnership does not provide them with everything but a word," Minter said. "It puts those couples in a second-class status. It marks them as second-class citizens. It deprives them of equal liberty, dignity and privacy."
The attorney for the Prop. 8 proponents, Kenneth Starr, began his arguments before the justices at 11 a.m.
"Rights are ultimately defined by the people," said Starr, representing Protect Marriage, the group that put the constitutional amendment on the ballot. He said proponents of Prop. 8 want to "restore the traditional definition that has been in place since this state was founded."
Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor and now dean of Pepperdine University law school, said Prop. 8 does not eliminate the civil rights of gays and lesbians, noting that they are afforded domestic-partnership rights by the state.
"People do have the raw power to define the rights," Starr said. "That's the nature of the consent of the government."
Also at issue in the case, potentially, is the future of 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California before the November election. If the court upholds Prop. 8, it must decide whether those marriages will be legally recognized.
Kennard focused on that issue in her questioning of Therese Stewart, who was arguing the case for the San Francisco city attorney's office. Kennard suggested that Prop. 8 "buried" language indicating that the marriages should not be retroactively recognized, and thus voters might not have intended to undo the unions.
Also arguing before the court this morning was Christopher Krueger, senior assistant attorney general under Attorney General Jerry Brown.
Brown took the unusual step of urging the court to overturn the initiative, saying the "inalienable" rights listed in the beginning of the state Constitution shouldn't be subject to majority whim.
Opponents of Prop. 8 argue that the initiative prevents judges from protecting the rights of a minority - racial, religious, political or sexual.
The same-sex couples and local governments, but not Brown's office, also argue that Prop. 8 made such a radical change to the state Constitution that it amounted to a revision, not an amendment. Revisions require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or an act of a constitutional convention to be put on the ballot.
Protect Marriage, the leading coalition defending Prop. 8, contends that voters have the power to define marriage under the state Constitution and the court must accept their decision.
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.
From The San Jose Mercury News:
Gay-rights activists march in San Jose and San Francisco on eve of legal arguments
The California Supreme Court today appeared inclined to uphold Proposition 8, but showed obvious reluctance to void thousands of same-sex marriages already in place when voters restored a ban on gay marriage last fall.
During three hours of arguments in San Francisco, the justices peppered lawyers opposing Proposition 8 with questions that suggested they do not believe they have the authority to trump the will of the voters.
At the same time, even justices who voted against striking down California's previous ban on gay marriage indicated that Proposition 8 should not wipe out an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place last year. Those couples mobilized around the state to obtain marriage licenses after the Supreme Court ruled last May that California's prior ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.
"Is that really fair to people who depended on what this court said was the law?" Justice Ming Chin asked Ken Starr, the former Clinton impeachment prosecutor who argued that same-sex marriages shouldn't be recognized under Proposition 8.
The justices are considering a high stakes legal challenge to the validity of the measure, which was approved by voters last fall and restored California's ban on gay marriage. The ballot measure, enacted by a 52 to 48 percent vote, erased last May's historic state Supreme Court ruling finding California's prior ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional because it deprived gay couples of the Proposition 8 amended the California Constitution to confine marriage to heterosexual couples, and its backers insist that the Supreme Court cannot overturn the will of the voters if they choose to change the state constitution.
During today's arguments, the majority of the court remarked that the current case is very different than last year's, primarily because the voters amended the constitution the court is bound to follow. "I stand by what I said in the marriage cases," Justice Joyce Kennard, a key vote in legalizing gay marriage last year, said at one point. "But this case is different. We're dealing with the power of the people.''
Justice Carol Corrigan, who dissented in last year's decision, remained reluctant to interfere with voters and legislators.
"Is the essence of your argument that the people have the right to amend their constitution as long as it isn't done in a way the Supreme Court doesn't like?'' Corrigan asked one civil rights lawyer.
Civil rights groups, same-sex couples and a number of local governments, including Santa Clara County and San Francisco, sued to block enforcement of Proposition 8, arguing that it was an improper method of amending the constitution and targets a minority group by depriving gay couples of the right to marry. Attorney General Jerry Brown also has refused to defend the law, saying it is unconstitutional and conflicts with last year's state Supreme Court ruling.
Christoper Krueger, the senior deputy assistant attorney general who argued for Brown, had the roughest ride during arguments, as all of the justices appeared poised to reject his argument that last year's ruling created an "inalienable right'' for same-sex couples to wed. "What I'm picking up from the argument is that the court should willy, nilly disregard the will of the people,'' Kennard told him. "As judges, our powers are limited."
If the court upholds Proposition 8, the justices must still determine whether existing gay marriages are valid across the state. On that point, even Starr, now dean of the Pepperdine University law school, found himself on the defensive, particularly from Chin and Corrigan, two justices who voted against legalizing gay marriage in the prior case. When Starr tried to maintain the measure had to be read as voiding the marriages, Corrigan shot back, "But this court had said "this is the law in California."
The justices agreed to review the case in November, producing an avalanche of legal arguments from all sides of the gay marriage debate. The Supreme Court now has 90 days to rule in the case, ensuring the fate of Proposition 8 will be determined before summer begins.
The Supreme Court was divided 4-3 in last year's ruling, and gay marriage opponents have vowed a political campaign against justices who vote to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage, adding to the intrigue surrounding the high court's handling of the controversial issue.
Chief Justice Ronald George, who wrote last year's majority opinion, told a gathering of reporters in December that he ignores such political considerations when he's deciding a hot-button case. George was joined in the prior ruling by Justices Joyce Kennard, Carlos Moreno and Kathryn Mickle Werdegar. Justices Marvin Baxter, Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan dissented in that case, saying it is up to voters and legislators, not the courts, to change laws governing same-sex marriage.
Contact Howard Mintz at hmintz@mercurynews.com or (408)-286-0236
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