California Supreme Court will take the Prop 8 Case

The California Supreme Court will listen to the supporters of Prop 8 and decide if they have a legal right to defend the ban. Here's more:

In their weekly closed-door conference, the Supreme Court granted a request from a federal appeals court to review the issue, which has clouded the legal battle over Proposition 8. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an order last month, asked California's high court to tackle whether proponents of the ballot measure have a legal right to appeal a federal judge's order last summer declaring the state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

The issue has arisen because both former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then-Attorney General Jerry Brown refused to defend the law, agreeing with Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's conclusion that Proposition 8 tramples on the rights of gay and lesbian couples. Brown, now governor, and new Attorney General Kamala Harris likewise refuse to appeal Walker's decision, leaving backers of the measure on their own to defend the law.
The state Supreme Court must now determine if California's ballot initiative process provides so-called "standing" for backers of such measures to press forward in the courts when the governor and attorney general will not defend a state law.

The outcome may be critical to how the legal battle over Proposition 8 unfolds. Court finds that Proposition 8 supporters do not have such a right, the 9th Circuit has indicated that it is likely unable to decide the central question in the case __ whether the same-sex marriage ban violates federal equal protection rights. As a result, Walker's ruling would stand, enabling gay marriages to resume in California, but the case would be confined to only resolving the issue in California.

However, if the Supreme Court rules that Proposition 8 backers can defend the law on their own, the case would return to the 9th Circuit, where the judges have also signalled they would then be in a position to resolve the legality of Proposition 8. That decision would then tee up the gay marriage issue for the U.S. Supreme Court, giving the case national implications.

Either way, it is likely to be months or longer before the state Supreme Court rules on the standing issue, delaying the outcome in the long legal battle over gay marriage in California. 

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