California Supreme Court sends mixed message on gay marriage
May 26, 2009 at 1:17 pm by David Warner
Ellen and Portia can stay married, says the court. The rest of you gays? Maybe not.
Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8, the ballot measure that amended the state constitution to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. But the court let stand the marriages that took place between May 4, 2008, when the same judicial body said it could see no constitutional excuse for banning gay marriage, and Nov. 4, 2008, when 52 percent of voters replied, “OK, we’ll give you a constitutional reason, you activist judges you!”
That said, the thousands of gay men and lesbians who married successfully within the six-month span — among them Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi and Wanda Sykes — form a powerful bloc of interested parties who could play a huge role in getting a counter-initiative off the ground.
Protests against the court’s decision are already underway in California and several are planned locally.
