Court overturns California gay marriage ban

February 8, 2012 - 20:12 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - A federal appeals court in California today struck down Proposition 8, the controversial ballot measure passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, ABC News reported.

About 18,000 same sex couples had obtained marriage licenses in the state before the ballot initiative was passed. Prop 8 “amounts to a distinct constitutional violation because the Equal Protection Clause protects minority groups from being targeted for the deprivation of an existing right without legitimate reason,” the court said.

“By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the People of California violated the Equal Protection Clause.”

Judge Steven Reinhardt, writing for the majority, said the court had decided the issue on the “narrowest grounds.” “We do not doubt the importance of the more general questions presented to us concerning the rights of same-sex couples to marry, nor do we doubt that these questions will likely be resolved in other states, and for the nation as a whole, by other courts,” he wrote.

“For now, it suffices to conclude that the People of California may not, consistent with the Federal Constitution, add to their state Constitution a provision that has no more practical effect than to strip gays and lesbians of their right to use the official designation that the State and society give to committed relationships, thereby adversely affecting the status and dignity of the members of a disfavored class.”

The narrow ruling, specific to California, means the case is less likely to reach the Supreme Court.

“The court said it didn’t need to rule on whether there is a fundamental right to marry of same sex couples, nor did they need to address the question of whether a state could ever outlaw a marriage between same-sex couples,” Margaret M. Russell of the Santa Clara University School of Law said. “Instead, the court said that same-sex couples already had the right to marry before Proposition 8, as well as the protections of the 2003 domestic partner law and therefore could not be denied.”