Exciting news re: Prop 8/Gay Marriage

My stepsister got married to her wife right before Prop 8 and they still live in CA. I can't imagine living amongst all that craziness.

Yes, I registered and came out of lurkdom just to answer questions in this thread... because I am a nerd like that. ;D

This is great news! I spent all day in press conferences locally filling in the media, so thought I'd share my knowledge here since it seems like a few people are interested.

What the decision today did was reject the proponents' (pro pro 8, anti-marriage equality people) request for the 9th Circuit to re-hear the case in front of a larger panel (this is called an en banc hearing.) The 9th Circuit already ruled in our (anti-prop 8, pro-marriage equality) favor in February, saying that Prop 8 was unconstitutional so a re-hearing would have meant essentially another year of fighting it out at the 9th Circuit level. The decision today is good news for same-sex couples because a) we already won and don't need to sit around for another year just to be told that we're still right and b) it expedites the case significantly by shaving off a lot of time that could have been wasted on more appeals, which means people will hopefully be able to resume getting same-sex married sooner (not to sound overly confident; more on this below.)

An appeal to the Supreme Court is forthcoming, and will be filed in the next 90 days. The Supreme Court will either accept the case and put it on their docket for this coming term (begins October-ish) or they won't accept it and that will be the official end of Prop 8. The second scenario is more likely, as they accept like 1% of the cases appealed to them and this case is really specific to the intricacies of CA law and not super relevant to other states. Also, there isn't any controversy among the circuit courts that SCOTUS needs to step in and settle. It's textbook for the kind of case they routinely pass over.

Even if we won at the Supreme Court it wouldn't really affect any other states or be very good precedent because it's so specific to California's system that it's not likely to help the fight for marriage equality in other states.

Possible outcomes from here are the following:

SCOTUS declines the cert petition = marriage equality is re-legalized in California
SCOTUS accepts the cert petition, hears the case, and decides in our favor = marriage equality is re-legalized in California
SCOTUS accept the cert petition, hears the case, and decides against us = no marriage equality for California except through another ballot initiative to override Prop 8 with a constitutional amendment.

As you can see, the odds are somewhat in the pro-marriage equality camp's favor. The first scenario, which has SCOTUS declining the petition, would happen as quickly as next fall. The scenarios where they accept the case and do oral arguments (fall/winter of next year) put a decision sometime around June of next year. Either way, we are not going to have to wait very long!

Thanks llama!!! What do you do for a living, if you don't mind me asking? You should stop lurking and start posting

No problem! I work at an LGBT-serving nonprofit in Central California managing the LGBT activism and advocacy branch of the organization. I am not a lawyer but have a pretty decent grasp on civil rights law and LGBT-related issues in particular... better than many of my lawyer friends, actually!

My wife and I are also one of the 18,000 couples who got legally married before Prop 8 passed in 2008.

Thanks! I love what I do.

I should post more. It's embarrassing how long I have been lurking. Like 3 years or something. I have posted before, mostly in threads like these, which is silly since I'm a huge politics buff. My first post ever on the board back on the nest was when Cuomo was elected gov of NY and I was like "Great, now maybe they can pass marriage equality!" and like 7 people jumped on me saying it wasn't ever going to happen. I admit I did laugh the day he signed the bill. I'll learn to bite back.

I am too! I think we have very little to gain from a Supreme Court ruling in this case. I mean, it's nice to be affirmed by them and everything (assuming it doesn't go horribly, which isn't something I'd gamble on in this current Court) but it doesn't really change the outcome much. It's not like, for example, they would legalize marriage equality in all 50 states or something. That would be WAY outside of the limits of this case as defined by the 9th Circuit, and definitely overreaching for a pretty conservative Court. Better to just leave well enough alone when we've already won. Only a few months until we'll know more about the trajectory of the case!

llama, get your ass in here more often