CA Supreme Court Ruling on Prop 8
After months of litigation, the California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 to uphold the controversial Proposition 8. The proposition was voted upon in November to add Article 1, Section 7.5 to the state Constitution declaring that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Ronald George, was joined by Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Marvin R. Baxter, Ming W. Chin, and Carol A Corrigan. Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar, although a reluctant sympathizer with the majority opinion, chose to write a concurring opinion expressing her own views. Justice Carlos R. Moreno was the lone dissenter on the bench.
The 136-page majority opinion begins with an explanation that the Court was not called upon to decided the morality of political soundness of Prop 8, but merely to address the issue of the proposition’s validity as it pertains to an amendment to the state Constitution, rather than a revision which would have required additional approval by the legislature.
The Court concluded that a revision “referred to the kind of wholesale or fundamental alteration of the constitutional structure that appropriately could be undertaken only by a constitutional convention.” The Petitioners on the case argued that Prop 8 was indeed a revision because it altered a fundamental aspect of the state constitution; that, of equality. The court disagreed holding that the proposition does not “fundamentally alter” basic equal protection rights. It also rejected arguments made by the Attorney General, Jerry Brown, which claimed that Prop 8 should be declared unconstitutional because “inalienable” constitutional provision, such as the right to privacy, should supersede constitutional provisions.
The CA Supreme Court also addressed the validity of the gay wedding conducted after the previous opinion and declared that Prop 8 was not retroactive and that those same-sex union would be upheld.