Posted on 08/19/2009 1:01:25 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO — Trial of a federal lawsuit that seeks to overturn Proposition 8 and let California's same-sex marriages resume will begin Jan. 11, a federal judge said Wednesday.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker also during Wednesday's 90-minute hearing denied the motions of a coalition of three gay-rights groups, as well as of the conservative Campaign for California Families, to intervene as parties to the case. Neither proved an interest not already adequately represented by the case's plaintiffs — same-sex couples wishing to marry — or the proponents of Proposition 8, he ruled.
But Walker did grant a motion to intervene from the City and County of San Francisco, which he said is asserting governmental interests — lost tourism dollars, and the cost of providing social services to those against whom Proposition 8 discriminates — that the plaintiffs don't represent.
Walker ordered the parties to start taking depositions and sharing information in the discovery process immediately, with expert witnesses to be designated by Oct. 2 and discovery to conclude Nov. 30. A pretrial conference will be held Dec. 16, rebuttal expert witnesses must be designated by Dec. 31 and trial is set for Jan. 11; meanwhile, he'll hold an Oct. 14 hearing on Proposition 8 proponents' motion to dispose of certain issues by summary judgment before the rest of the case is tried.
Walker indicated this timeline would balance the need for speed, so Californians aren't left hanging with the issue unresolved, with the need for developing a solid record for the assured appeals, perhaps all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Walker last month declined to grant a preliminary injunction halting Prop. 8's enforcement until a final decision was made. Doing so, he said at the time, would create too much uncertainty and confusion.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
Jerry Brown doesn’t represent the State of California in this case.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2284214/posts
He has a massive conflict of interest.
In fact, I sincerely hope that ProtectMarriage.com requests their attorneys fees to be paid under the private AG’s statute—(y’know, the one the ACLU uses to raid the public treasury)
“Ted Olson will take this to the SCOTUS and win based on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.”
Not saying that SCOTUS definitely won’t rule that way, Lord knows how they’re going to intepret the Constitution from moment to moment. But there is no equal protection issue. The law applied equally to everyone before the law changed, and it applies equally to everyone now. The law can change.
I find it abhorrent that a single federal judge thinks he/she has the authority to overturn a state constitutional amendment.
CA and NY are considering state constitutional conventions to start over, to completely rewrite the central nervous system of their states. It would constitute tyranny for a federal judge to pick and choose or rewrite which articles should be retained
I don’t understand why plural marriage advocated aren’t chiming in on this case. They also are being discriminated because they want to marry more than one. Why are their wishes to marry any less than mine or the gays?
Couldn't a federal judge just as well rule that the California Supremes made a mistake by misreading the plain intent of the Proposition, and invalidate those homosexual "marriages" that the California Supremes erroneously left in force? "Equal Protection" problem solved!
So if a State put into its Constitution that no one in that state had to pay federal taxes, or serve in the U.S. armed forces, that would be enforceable? Nonsense. Article VI quite clearly says that the U.S. Constitution and federal laws are supreme over any State Constitution. And the federal courts have been exercising their power to strike down state laws as unconstitutional since at least Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, which was back in 1816.
This is NOT JUST CALIFORNIA this is about overturning the 1996 DMA too!
Well, that would just be too easy now, wouldn’t it?
The states specifically granted powers long ago to tax incomes and raise armies to the federal government.
They granted no power to define marriage.
Yes, but that would be up to Justice Kennedy and I don’t see him taking that status away from the current people.
No, but they granted the federal government the power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause. That clause was used to strike down the marriage laws of numerous states in Loving v. Virginia (1967) (striking down anti-miscegenation statutes).
I am not saying that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional. But your original argument-- that federal courts have no power to review state constitutions-- is simply wrong.
Our courts have morphed into unelected legislatures, the embodiment of tyranny.
“The CA Court created two classes and the SCOTUS likes to apply the Equal Protection Clause”
Simply having two classes isn’t in itself a violation of equal protection. Convicts are different from law-abiding people. Single and married people form seperate classes. No one cares about the 14th amendment in either case. We don’t care because married people have been granted special status through the due process of the law. They had to go through certain steps, steps which single people could also go through, if they so desired.
The small group of gay people who remain legally married likewise went through what was a legal process at the time, and they retain their status even though the law has changed I assume because they’ve been “grandfathered” in, or however you put it.
Not quite. There is a fundamental distinction between a law based on the fundamental difference of sex, and one based on race. See Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972).
Off the top of my head, I can think of Four People that care abort the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause:
Justice Stevens
Justice Breyer
Justice Ginsburg
Justice Sotomayor
And a Fifth Justice, Anthony Kennedy, seems to like the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause, as evidenced by his vote in Lawrence v. Texas.
Not only did Justice Kennedy vote in the majority in Lawrence v. Texas, but He Wrote the Majority Opinion.
And that's five votes and with those five votes, I hate to say, Prop 8 will go down.
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