The closing arguments will be held tomorrow, Feb 26th for the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger case on gay marriage. What do you think the verdict will be?
I think no matter what the decision is, it'll go to the US Supreme Court, which will be disastrous, because that Court will completely strike gay marriage down, and then it will be at least 15 to 20 years before it will get reconsidered at the federal level in the US. But you know, the US Supreme Court--TOTALLY non-partisan. *groan*
We have at least 4 of the justices on our side. Now if Samuel Alito could just have a heart attack or something, we'd be set.
Close only counts in horseshoes, unfortunately. 4 might as well be 0 for all the good it will do. And sadly, the oldest and most ill members of the court are its "liberals" (I use quotation marks because the US Supreme Court's "liberals" are nowhere near as liberal as its conservatives are psychotic, arch-archconservatives), while its conservative wing is super young. (Thank you, GWB, for the gift that keeps on giving... like herpes!)
Kennedy is our swing vote, and there is at least a glimmer of hope with him. (Even though he tends to vote conservative, I believe he could come through for us.)
If I recall correctly, the court case is over the constitutionality of Prop 8 (as in whether you can use a ballot measure in the way it was used to deny a right that is [possibly] fundamental). (as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_v._Schwarzenegger) So if the decision at the appellate court level is favourable (meaning that Prop 8 is unconstitutional and cannot be banned by ballot measure), you can bet the religious fundamentalists and archconservatives will challenge that decision in the Supreme Court. If the decision is unfavourable at the appellate level, I can only assume same-sex marriage advocates will also want to take it to the Supreme Court (even though strategically that's very likely a stupid thing to do). So either way, any decision is unlikely to relegalize gay marriage in California... a favourable decision that would relegalize it would likely be stayed pending appeal at the Supreme Court level. And as I said, unless the composition of the US Supreme Court changes dramatically between the appellate decision and when the issue is taken up by the USSC, the result is very likely that the US Supreme Court will rule 5-4 that preventing gay marriage is completely constitutional (or rather, they'll say the constitution provides no guarantee of same-sex marriage rights, or that marriage is "traditionally" between a man and a woman, blah blah blah, etc.).
If the CA ruling invalidates Prop 8, but the US Supreme Court overturns that ruling, I think that means Prop 8 would stand. HOWEVER, I think this issue is going to be on the 2010 ballot and will likely be repealed by voters anyway, since Prop 8 passed in large part due to trickery and deception. It will be on the ballot every single year until gay marriage becomes legal again whether you like it or not!
guys, tommarow is closing arguements, not verdict. judge walker requested 30 days to consider all of the testimony further before hearing closing arguements tommarow. doesnt mean that a verdict will come tommarow also, just that the closing arguement closes the case, and no more evidence or briefs can be filed by either party.
Which is appalling and just shows exactly how ridiculous law-making by ballot measure is! You shouldn't be able to keep putting issues on ballots election year after election year just because you didn't get your way last time (whether you're liberal or conservative). It's government by stupidity (well, more stupidity than normal, at least).
all we can do is hope for the best, maybe inform or write some people idk Plus if either group was gonna try and take gay marriage to the supreme court i think they would have by now. It seems that neither wants to risk losing it and the religious right is simply trying to overturn it by putting our vote for amendment rights on the ballot because they have seen that trying to do it through higher up parts of government has yielded unfavorable results to often. (turning amendment rights into a popularity contest, like taking candy from a baby)
True, Kennedy did write the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which was decided 6-3 in 2003, decriminalizing sodomy across the US.