A federal appeals panel in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional, a decision that could lead to the Supreme Court’s consideration of the controversial social issue.
By a vote of 2 to 1, the panel overturned the measure, which in 2008 amended the state’s Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman.
“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote. “The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort.”
The panel took a narrow route in knocking down California’s prohibition and did not address whether same-sex couples have a federal constitutional right to marry. Such unions are unlikely to resume in the nation’s most populous state until the appeals process is completed.
But it was a significant development in a contentious national battle over gay rights, including the ability to serve openly in the military. Besides California, 28 states have constitutional amendments that ban same-sex marriage, and 12 others have laws that restrict unions to one man and one woman.
Six states and the District of Columbia allow gay couples to marry, and three others are considering joining them. Polls show a striking generational difference in acceptance, with young people far more in favor of allowing same-sex unions.
There is a partisan difference as well. And if the issue reaches the Supreme Court, as opponents of same-sex-marriage want, the arguments could occur in the fall when the nation is consumed with a presidential election.
The ideological differences were apparent on the three-judge panel. Reinhardt, a Jimmy Carter appointee who is considered one of the nation’s most liberal appellate judges, was joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, appointed by President Bill Clinton. Judge N. Randy Smith, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, dissented.
But the majority did not issue a broad ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Instead, it focused on the fact that gay couples in California for a brief time had the right to marry, and that Proposition 8 took that away.
In 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled 4 to 3 that same-sex couples could not be denied the right to wed, and over the next five months, about 18,000 such couples took marriage vows. But that fall, 52 percent of California voters supported Proposition 8, amending the state Constitution to validate “only a marriage between a man and a woman.”
Reinhardt said this “taking away” of a right by the majority was not allowed.
“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” of the federal Constitution, Reinhardt wrote.
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