Vaughn R. Walker, the federal judge who ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, will leave the bench at the end of the year for the private sector, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco announced Wednesday....
If it had been up to Long Beach voters back in November 2008, Proposition 8 would just be a memory.
Now, the Long Beach City Council is joining its constituents in opposing the same-sex marriage ban.
Next Tuesday, the council will vote on creating a resolution "affirming the support of the City of Long Beach for full marriage equality, and for the decision of the Governor and Attorney General no...
"These institutions that we so often think are as old as time do change," said History and Literature Lecturer Timothy P. McCarthy '93, who moderated the discussion. "The idea that things do and can change goes to the root of the logic, or illogic, of the opposition's argument that marriage is a timeless institution that has never changed and must continue to never change."
Cott emphasized the si...
In short, there's no principled way of excluding only our unions from the right to marry. It's precisely for that reason that courts have come to recognize that what really lies at the bottom of the opposition is a kind of natural law argument that, on the most basic level, reduces to: "Ick!"...
NOM has filed an amicus brief with the 9th Circuit arguing for Prop 8. They call it "dynamite." I call it a mess. I'll leave the legal analysis to the lawyers, but I have to point out some of the worst bits of logic or my head will explode (hey, maybe that's why it's "dynamite")....
There was sobbing. There were tears. Elder Jensen also shed tears as he listened and took notes to share with other General Authorities back in Salt Lake City. At the conclusion of the hour, he apologized for the pain he was witnessing.
According to attendee Carol Lynn Pearson, a Mormon author and long-time advocate of LGBT concerns, Elder Jensen said, "To the full extent of my capacity, I say th...
On 20 October 2008, Sampaio came to work with a "No on Prop 8″ poster in his truck. Other vehicles in the parking lot had "Yes on Prop 8″ posters and Sampaio wanted to express his view on the subject. The president of the company stated in Sampaio's presence "I will not permit gays to work here because they contaminate us with their lifestyle. I have a way of getting that out of my parking lot." T...
A legal tsunami of Amicus curiae or "friend of the court" briefs are washing over the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel will consider Judge Vaugh Walker's August decision striking down Prop. 8. A quick scan of the more-than 100 briefs that streamed in over the past week indicate a very organized effort by conservative groups to sway the judges. Family Policy Councils from a r...
A big huge thanks to all the folks who showed up Sunday to help us tape a message from San Francisco to LGBT youth who feel lonely and isolated wherever they are. As the video says: it gets better!
This morning, the Human Rights Campaign and Courage Campaign are launching a new website -- www.NOMexposed.org -- that breaks open the cover on NOM's shady activities and lets the sun shine in where NOM doesn't want to see it. It's an important way to expose the worst of NOM to the public....
After federal judge Vaughn Walker ruled last August that California's Proposition 8 banning same sex marriage was unconstitutional, a group of ten states, including Utah, have filed suit in the 9th District Court of Appeals. The amicus brief claims that individual states have the final say about the legal status of same sex marriage, not the federal government, and that same sex marriage is not a ...
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox on Friday joined with nine other state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the federal appeal of a ruling overturning California's ban on same-sex marriage.
That ruling, by a federal district judge in San Francisco, found that defining marriage as between one man and one woman violated several Constitutional standards, including the equal protection c...
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has joined 13 states in filing an amicus brief in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger challengeing the court's decision to interfere with state sovereignty....
This was a busy week for Prop 8 proponents -- about two dozen pro-discrimination briefs were filed on Friday with the usual "defend tradition" and "gays can't have children" business. It'll take a while for LGBT groups to sift through them, so information about those anti-gay briefs will probably sif...
Wyoming and nine other states signed onto a legal brief Friday claiming a federal court "exceeded its judicial authority" when it ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires legal marriage to include same-sex couples.
In the amicus brief, which was set to be filed late Friday afternoon with the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals, the states criticized a California federal judge's ruling last month that Cali...
The American Foundation for Equal Rights held a fund-raiser in New York City Wednesday night at the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Columbus Circle. The AFER is the organization that led the legal battle, led by lawyers Theodore Olson and David Boies, to challenge California's ban on gay marriage. A trial court judge struck down the statute last month, but the case is on appeal
With scores of first-ti...
Proposition 8 does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Homosexuals may marry someone of the opposite sex, and heterosexuals may not marry someone of the same sex....
Meanwhile, the statewide LGBT lobbying group Equality California has been warning that if Prop 8 supporter Meg Whitman is elected governor, she will order the new Attorney General to try to intervene in the federal Prop 8 case, now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Additionally, while current AG Jerry Brown believes Prop 8 is unconstitutional and has refused to defend it in court, the man s...
The group sponsoring the legal challenge to California's same-sex marriage ban announced Thursday that a recent fundraiser by conservative supporters in New York brought in more than $1.2 million for the effort....
Have you seen Dan Savage's awesome new project, It Gets Better? It's all about reaching out to at-risk LGBT kids who are physically isolated in small towns and feel like they have no one to turn to. As adults, we know that life gets better once you're old enough to get out of those situations. So it's up to us to let those kids know that they just need to hang in there, to be strong, and that they...
Peplau's talk, labeled "Marriage Equality for Same-Sex Couples: Perspectives from Relationship Research," included research that showed small to absolutely no variation in the types of relationships same-sex couples have based on four areas: quality, sexuality, stability and relationship formation.
"The consistent finding in these studies is that same-sex couples are indistinguishable from hetero...
Shelby, 38, said she began to do her own education about marriage equality when a friend was removed from the decision-making process over his partner's affairs in the last months of his partner's life. The man explained to her that if they had the opportunity to marry, his removal from his partner's life wouldn't have happened.
Shelby asked friends what she could do, because she thought, "There ...
Meanwhile, the statewide LGBT lobbying group Equality California has been warning that if Prop 8 supporter Meg Whitman is elected governor, she will order the new Attorney General to try to intervene in the federal Prop 8 case, now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Additionally, while current AG Jerry Brown believes Prop 8 is unconstitutional and has refused to defend it in court, the man s...
Those supporters filed their first brief on Friday. In it, they argue that marriage is inherently defined by the ability of heterosexual couples to procreate.
"The essential question in this case, then, is whether such unions [opposite-sex marriages] possess distinguishing characteristics that are relevant to marriage," they write. "This is not a hard question. Indeed, because of the distinguishi...
They're at it again.
Anti-gay groups like The National Organization for Marriage don't have any facts to back up their crusade to ban marriage, so their ads all lean on innuendo, suggestions, and "weasel words." Nowhere is that more apparent than their new ad, which calls for the ousting of Iowa Supreme Court justices based on one single ruling that NOM happens not to like.
If NOM wants to waste...
From a 30,000 foot view, there is one theme to their substantive arguments: the trial didn't happen. Oh, sure they acknowledge that it physically happened, but the evidence that was presented there, wasn't convincing, the decisions all wrong. You think there was evidence that Prop 8 was discriminatory? No, not really. You think there was evidence that showed Prop 8 harmed gays and lesbians? No, no...
In the end, we can think of the standing issue like this: the Proponents are a square peg that the Ninth Circuit has to fit somewhere. The Ninth Circuit may, as the Proponents argue, try to shove that square peg into the round hole that is Karcher by finding that the Proponents are similar to the Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly who was expressly authorized by a New Jersey statute to defend the ...
Last week, Chuck Cooper, lead Prop 8 defense attorney, addressed an audience of students at the BYU law school on the subject of protecting "traditional" marriage from the ravages of same-sex couples. During the question and answer session after his address, he got asked some very pointed and intelligent questions about his case for keeping gay couples from marrying--and, according to at least on...
Beginning a sturdy new defense of California voters' right to impose a flat ban on same-sex marriage, the supporters of the controversial Proposition 8 told a federal appeals court Friday night that the case should go forward but, as an alternative, should be thrown out of court altogether with no ruling left on the books on the ban's constitutionality. Scuttling the case, of course, would leave ...
If backers of Proposition 8 are not permitted to appeal a federal judge's ruling overturning the measure, the effect of that ruling must be limited to the two same-sex couples who brought the challenge, sponsors of Proposition 8 argued Friday.
In written arguments before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the sponsors, called protectmarriage.com, insisted they had legal authority to appeal la...
"If the allegation that Judge Walker is a homosexual is true, [then] he has a personal interest in the outcome of the trial" and should have recused himself, the brief states.
And with that, the speculation over Walker's sexual orientation is now apparently for the first time part of the court record....
Lawyers for backers of California's same-sex marriage ban are urging a federal appeals court to overturn the trial judge who struck down Proposition 8 by arguing that his consideration of evidence was what they termed "egregiously selective and one-sided."...
Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado said yesterday he did not file an appeal from a federal court ruling striking down the state's anti-same-sex marriage initiative because he was focused on other matters and had not discussed the matter with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Maldonado, in an interview with conservative radio talk show host Eric Hogue, acknowledged that callers had jammed his office phone lines ur...
The San Francisco-based Horizons Foundation recently announced it's awarding $350,000 in grants to help organizations build support for same-sex marriage in communities of color.
The funds are part of a new Horizons grant program, People of Color Creating Equality.
"These grants are extremely important because the issue of our equality is extremely important, and because we have, as a movement, ...
How will the state respond to Judge Walker's Prop 8 ruling? If Arnold Schwarznegger and Jerry Brown have their way, the state will barely respond at all. Even though conservatives want them to defend the marriage ban, the Governor and Attorney General ...
Under the California Constitution, "The Lieutenant Governor shall act as Governor during the impeachment, absence from the State, or other temporary disability of the Governor or of a Governor-elect who fails to take office." Thus, because Schwarzenegger is currently on business in China, Maldonado does have the authority to file an appeal that the governor objects to.
It's difficult to imagine ...
It's a name you might not recognize if you're not a political wonk, but his anti-gay crusade could spell disaster for California's LGBTs.
Maldonado is California's current Lieutenant Governor. It's a relatively low-profile job: he basically just has to look busy in case anyone ...
Will Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado sign an appeal for the voters of California, and proponents of Prop 8?
Abel Maldonado has had himself an active two days signing legislation and overseeing the emergency relief after the PG&E gas explosion in San Bruno - will the Lt. Governor also become active in the same-sex marriage court decision?
It starts with an appeal for appeal from conservative leaders ...
"Both the Governor and the Attorney General were convinced by the merits of Judge Walker's comprehensive factual findings and legal conclusions," says Joan Hollinger, professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law. "And," she adds, "as is their prerogative under our state law, they have decided not to appeal his ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. They are both discharging their obliga...
It will now be up to a federal appeals court, and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, to decide whether Prop. 8's sponsors have legal standing - the right to represent the state's interests in defending one of its laws. Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said the court order was disappointing.
"People on the left and right should both be mourning the fact that the attor...
Chris Geidner at MetroWeekly writes that Deputy Attorney General Tamar Pachter, responding for AG Brown, said in her letter that the Pacific Justice Institute's effort on behalf of Pastor Joshua Beckley "is too little, too late."
Pachter concluded:
It is within the Attorney General's discretion to determine that it is or that it is not appropriate to pursue an appeal. In Perry, given th...
Last week the 3rd District Court of Appeal rejected a lawsuit filed by the Pacific Justice Institute trying to force Attorney General Jerry Brown (who is running for governor in the 2010 elections) and the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to file an appeal in the federal challenge to Proposition 8. According to an email from the right wing Capitol Resources Institute, the California Supreme Court w...
Imperial County passed Prop 8 by 20,217 votes or 70 percent, according to the Union Tribune. Last December the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to hire the outside firm, arguing that they had a governmental interest because their county clerks had to issue marriage licenses.
The county board appealed Walker's ruling denying their petition to intervene. So when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...
Our smackdown of the National Organization for Marriage struck a chord this week, with over 30,000 views! Keep passing the word around, especially if you have any friends in the media -- it's important for reporters to understand that NOM isn't presenting "the other side of the argument," they're simply tellin...
My role is exactly the role that a predecessor followed, [former California attorney general] Tom Lynch: When Prop. 14 was passed in 1964, overturning fair housing laws in the state, he did not defend it. And in fact, the California supreme court invalidated the popular initiative -- one that was passed by many more votes than Prop. 8. So it's the same principle position of upholding the federal C...
If this "totality of life experience" were so relevant to The Times, why did it not report on the sexual orientation of the heterosexual trial court judge who originally struck down the same-sex marriage ban in 2005, finding that it violated the California Constitution prior to its amending by Proposition 8? Why did The Times not report on the sexual orientation of each California Supreme Court ju...
Presiding Justice Arthur Scotland did not explain why the appeals court turned down the request filed two days earlier by the Pacific Justice Institute.
The institute now plans to take the matter to the California Supreme Court, Chief Counsel Kevin Snider said Thursday.
"We are disappointed that the appellate court showed indecisiveness in trying to prevent a constitutional crisis," Snider said....
A conservative legal group's emergency order trying to force the State of California to defend Proposition 8 in court has been denied.
The Third Court of Appeals in Sacramento ruled today against the petition by the Pacific Justice Institute in Beckley v. Schwarzenegger et al....
Fiorina criticized the recent ruling by a federal judge overturning Proposition 8, California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. "The voters were quite clear," she said. "For that decision to be overturned by a single judge perhaps seems not appropriate."
Fiorina pointed out that she supports same-sex civil unions and the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gays and l...
With California laying off teachers, police and firefighters amidst an unprecedented budget crisis, it is the height of hypocrisy for so called 'conservatives' to demand that California taxpayers foot the bill to defend a discriminatory law that has already been declared unconstitutional in federal court....
This is an outrageous attempt to try and force elected officials who have sworn to uphold the United States Constitution to defend a law that the Federal Court has found to be unconstitutional. It demonstrates their acknowledgement that the proponents of Proposition 8 lack standing to appeal, that the case should be dismissed and loving same-sex couples should be allowed to exercise their constitu...
A conservative legal group is trying to force Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to defend California's gay marriage ban in court.
The Pacific Justice Institute petitioned the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento on Monday for an emergency order that would require the two officials to appeal a ruling that overturned Proposition 8.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn W...
