Locals react to Prop 8 ruling
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that California’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional, a decision that is being both praised and disputed by locals in a town whose City Council endorsed the controversial ballot measure before it was voted on more than three years ago.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a lower court judge correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedents when he declared in 2010 that Proposition 8 — a November 2008 voter-approved ballot proposition providing that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” — was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians.
However, the appeals court said gay marriages cannot resume in the state until the deadline passes for Proposition 8 sponsors to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which legal experts say may not even take the case because the ruling was so pointedly limited to California.
“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” states the opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, one of the court’s most liberal judges.
California voters passed Proposition 8 with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage by striking down a pair of laws that had limited marriage to a man and a woman.
In September 2008, two months before the election, members of the Porterville City Council created a stir when they unanimously voted to adopt a formal resolution that backed the proposition. It was reported to be the only city council to take a stand in favor of the proposition.
Even though the ballot measure was passed by voters, Porterville resident Brock Neeley, who was married to John Coffee in June 2008, said the proposition was “unconstitutional” because it denied equality granted to people under the 14th Amendment.
“Even if the will of the people is unconstitutional, it’s unconstitutional and should not become law,” Neeley said.
Neeley and Coffee were married on June 17, 2008 — two days after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and the Law, a think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles, has estimated that 18,000 couples tied the knot during the four-month window before Proposition 8 took effect. The state Supreme Court upheld those marriages.
The Rev. Scott Daugherty of St. Anne’s Parish disagreed with the federal appeals court’s decision because he said gay marriage “goes against natural law.”
“People can choose to live however they want, and they will. But they will have to answer to that,” Daugherty said.
Proposition 8 was ruled to be unconstitutional by form Chief U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker, who publicly revealed that he was gay after he retired in late February 2011.
