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Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Federal court strikes down California ban on gay marriage

Justices say taking away same-sex marriage rights violates the US Constitution
By Will Collette

In 2008, Proposition 8 was approved by California voters with a 52% majority. Proposition 8 banned same-sex marriages and amended the state Constitution to that effect. The campaign to enact Proposition 8 was heavily bankrolled by the Mormon and Catholic Churches. The campaign for Proposition 8 was launched when the California Supreme Court ruled that gay couples had the right to marry.

Today, the US Court of Appeals struck down Proposition 8 as a violation of the US Constitution. Justice Stephen Reinhardt wrote “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. 



With rare, and almost always temporary, exceptions, the US federal courts have held that the majority cannot enact laws, even by majority vote as in this case, that oppress a minority.

In an e-mail sent out this afternoon, Ray Sullivan, campaign director for Marriage Equality for Rhode Island (MERI) wrote that while gay and lesbian couples in California “unfortunately had to win the freedom to marry through the judicial system, our efforts in Rhode Island are still focused on the General Assembly. But our well-funded opponents, the so-called National Organization for Marriage (NOM), will surely use this as an opportunity to raise money to promote their anti-gay agenda.”

Sullivan is referring to the massive effort that blocked full same-sex marriage rights in the last session of the General Assembly, resulting in the enactment of a compromised “civil union” law that has been unpopular both with same-sex marriage advocates and opponents.

In Charlestown, according to end-of-year statistics from Town Clerk Amy Weinreich, no civil union ceremonies took place.