Same-sex couples celebrate over ruling
Proposition 8 is unconstitutional according to the decision handed down by the three-panel judge of the ninth U.S. circuit court today. The decision was two-to-one.
“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the ruling.
The proponents of Prop 8 will surely appeal the decision, and the case should go before the U.S. Supreme Court sometime next year.
Today’s ruling is in concurrence of the one handed down by a lower court Judge Vaugh Walker in 2010 whom felt the ban on same-sex marriages was a violation of gays and lesbians civil rights.
“Although the constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently,” the ruling states.
Prop 8 had initially passed in 2008 in California.
California is now the seventh state to allow gays and lesbians to apply for marriage licenses.
Opponents of Prop 8 see today has an impressively huge victory for the gay community; though, those couples who were allowed to marry during the four-month period in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in California still need to wait to see if their status will be reinstated.
