U.S. appeals court strikes down California same-sex marriage ban

Just released.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/07/BA1H1N3T1H.DTL&tsp=1

2-1 ruling from the Ninth Circuit, the bane of conservatives' existence.

 

And the winner is... LTL

 

The Internet took longer to deliver it to where Dick lives.

 

Yep, beat me to it by a few seconds it looks like.

I'm extremely interested to see the court's reasoning.

If they say that homosexuals are a protected class under the 14th Amendment (thus applying strict scrutiny), I can't get on board.

If they say that there is no rational basis for the ban (rational basis review), then I might be able to. This was the reasoning of the district court.

Either way, I think that the Supreme Court is extremely likely to reverse.

 

This case was tailor-made by Olsen and Bois to fit Justice Kennedy's decision in Lawrence v. Texas. If the case is overturned at the Supreme Court, it will almost certainly be because Kennedy does 180 from his opinion in Lawrence.

 

I'll take that bet. Odds are, this case won't make it to the Supreme Court, as it's very narrowly defined. But if it does, according to the legal scholars who have been talking about this out here in SoCal for months now, the rulings are very legally sound.

 

The 9th circuit? I'm shocked!

Why aren't you entertaining the possibility of gender-like intermediate scrutiny? I didn't read the district court opinion, but that seems like the most logical way to go to me. Strict scrutiny for sexual orientation is just the wrong answer and it's a difficult case to make that it doesn't meet rational basis is hard to buy.

 

I think so, too, mostly because the lower court ruled on the rational basis review. But the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, the Court will give almost complete carte blanche deference to a law that doesn't involve a protected group or a protected right. I would probably make this one of the exceptions, because I don't think there's a rational basis that's been articulated for a ban on gay marriage. But I don't know if Kennedy goes there.

 

Even in a post-Lopez world, that should not be a high standard.

 

Looks like it was rational basis review.

"Proposition 8 could not have been enacted to advance California's interests in childrearing or responsible procreation, for it had no effect on the rights of same-sex couples to raise children or on the procreative rights of other couples. Nor did Proposition 8 have any effect on religious freedom or on parents' rights to control their children's education; it could not have been enacted to safeguard these liberties."

 

Then it should be reversed. Why didn't they go intermediate scrutiny?

 

I know, but I don't think that the Proposition 8 proponents have met it. I'll read the dissent and see if it convinces me otherwise.