A federal judge overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban on Aug 4, 2010 in a landmark case that could eventually land before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays have a constitutional right to marry in America.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker made his ruling in a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who claimed the voter-approved ban violated their civil rights.
Supporters argued the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing.
California voters passed the ban as Proposition 8 in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
However, on August 16, 2010, the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit indefinitely extended the District Court's stay, stopping new same-sex marriages in the state of California pending appeal. It also scheduled an accelerated time table for hearing an appeal of Walker's ruling.
On January 4, 2011, the appeals court ruled that Imperial County did not have standing to intervene in the suit. In the second, the court certified a question to the California Supreme Court as to whether non-governmental proponents of the amendment have standing to appeal.
The California Supreme Court on February 16 unanimously agreed to address the Ninth Circuit's request.
On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision on the appeal in the case Hollingsworth v. Perry, ruling that proponents of initiatives such as Proposition 8 did not possess legal standing in their own right to defend the resulting law in federal court, either to the Supreme Court or (previously) to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore the Supreme Court both dismissed the appeal and directed the Ninth Circuit to vacate (withdraw) its decision, which had upheld the district court ruling. The decision left the district court's 2010 ruling intact. On June 28, 2013, the Ninth Circuit lifted its stay of the district court's ruling, enabling Governor Jerry Brown to order same-sex marriages to resume.
DUO: Stu Bergman & Joanne Gardner
