The tone was cautiously optimistic at a panel discussion held last week by the San Francisco Bar Association to discuss the federal court challenge to Proposition 8.

Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, moderated the discussion with San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, Santa Clara University Professor Margaret Russell, and the Recorder federal court reporter Dan Levine.

The panel discussed the recently-concluded arguments in the Prop 8 case, known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a constitutional challenge to California's same-sex marriage ban. Chief District Court Judge Vaughn Walker is expected to issue his decision in the case any day now.

With the Perry case, "I could not think of one thing that I would have wanted to go differently," Minter said at the July 8 forum.