Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Supreme Court Hears Cases on Prop. 8 Tomorrow

The California Supreme Court will be hearing oral argument tomorrow on the challenge brought by gay-rights activists to the enactment of Proposition 8 last November, which defines marriage in California as between a man and a woman. Links to watch the argument have been posted by the Court here.

There have been a slew of briefs filed in the cases (a number of separate suits were filed, and then consolidated by the Court) by both the parties and the groups acting as "friends of the court" (amici curiae). You will find links to download all of them at this page, as well as the Court's official summary, news releases, the Court's prior opinion, and much, much more.

For those wanting a quick review of the issues on both sides, as well as a realistic assessment of the arguments, this article by a civil litigator at Huffington Post does a pretty good job. (H/T: JB Chilton, at The Lead.) Over at StandFirm earlier, commenter jamesw provided links to two helpful articles about the pros and cons of the arguments in this post; later, he also provided a cite to this comprehensive analysis, which is still apposite. See also this latest post over at Volokh Conspiracy (also linked on the sidebar) for a useful summary and further links.

I will have more to say following the argument. For my thoughts as to why the entire argument about "rights" to marry is misguided, please see this post.


1 comment:

  1. Here is an analysis by the LA Times, including some interesting ideas from Doug Kmiec. Kmiec suggests that the Court would be hardpressed to credibly overturn Prop. 8, but then suggests that the Court might simultaneously uphold BOTH Prop. 8 AND their last year's ruling by mandating the state to just offer "civil unions" to all couples.

    Otherwise, the LA Times analysis suggests that Prop. 8 will be upheld except that homosexual "marriages" performed between the May court decision and the November election would continue to be valid.

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