Litigation

Supreme Court Case on Prop 8 Previewed?

By Peter Hardin

It’s a measure of the spotlight on gay marriage that lawyers who won a landmark ruling from a San Francisco judge appeared on national TV talk shows Sunday.

David Boies, who successfully challenged California’s ban on same-sex marriages before federal district Judge Vaughn R. Walker, previewed arguments he might present if the issue arrives before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Junk science,” as he labeled the opposition’s facts, don’t work in a court of law, Boies said, according to a CQ Politics article. He added, “We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.”

?It is not judicial activism,? said fellow lawyer Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general named by President George W. Bush, about Judge Walker’s striking down voter-approved Proposition 8 (see Gavel Grab).  ?It is judicial responsibility.?

But Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council branded the ruling “flawed” and stated that Walker is “an openly homosexual judge.” Perkins added, ?He ignored a lot of the social science in his opinion.”

The ruling drew extensive coverage over the weekend. Here are links to just a few of the articles: “Long road ahead for Prop. 8 court case,” in the San Francisco Chronicle; “The Politics of the Gay Marriage Prop 8 Decision,” in U.S. News & World Report; “Making a Supreme Court Case for Gay Marriage,” in Time; and “California’s gay-marriage decision unlikely to shift campaign focus from economy,” in the Washington Post.

Full post as published by The Gavel on August 09, 2010 (boomark / email).