Legal News

Battle lines etched deeper in Prop 8 aftermath

By Richard Binder

Dozens of lawyers filed friend of the court briefs on Monday in support of a petition before the California Supreme Court seeking to overturn Proposition 8.

The petition was filed on behalf of six same-sex couples by Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, and Gregory D. Phillips, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson. In a separate case earlier this year, Minter successfully argued before the California Supreme Court that same sex couples have the fundamental right to marry.

One of the recent briefs, filed by a team of lawyers at Los Angeles-based Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher on behalf of 44 state legislators, argues that Proposition 8 constitutes a change in the constitution that discriminates against a minority group ? something that requires a two-thirds vote of the legislators, not a simple majority vote.

Read the full NLJ article.

Prop 8's defenders are not staying silent, either.  Liberty Counsel has filed a motion to intervene in the above-mentioned suits, calling them "patently frivolous."  And on Flashpoint James Lacy proffers the "nuclear option" of recalling members of the Supreme Court should they not uphold the proposition.   

As to the potential retroactivity of Prop 8, Attorney General Jerry Brown says already existing marriages should remain valid, although Kenji Yoshino opines otherwise.  Generally, Erwin Chemerinsky says, "there isn't enough law to make a prediction" about how all this will play out. 

For now, at least, there's New Haven.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on November 12, 2008 (boomark / email).