Political Junky
Gold Member
- May 27, 2009
- 25,793
- 3,990
- 280
Gay Marriage Advocates Hope for Sweeping Supreme Court Ruling, Right? Wrong! - ABC News
Hours after winning a landmark case in a California federal appeals court that struck down the states ban on gay marriage, lawyer Theodore B. Olson, who had filed a lawsuit against the ban known as Proposition 8, talked about the odds of the Supreme Court taking up the case.
This issue will go to the Supreme Court, I think it will go to the Supreme Court in this case, he told MSNBCs Rachel Maddow.
But because the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit was so specific to Californias unique history with same-sex marriage, some legal analysts believe the justices might pass on the case. Or if the court took it up, it would rule narrowly on Proposition 8 saving the broader question of whether gays and lesbians have a right to marry for another day.
And that would be just fine for some advocates of gay marriage.
If by some chance the Supreme Court decided today that same-sex couples had a right to marry, I could see an enormous outcry and a push for a federal constitutional amendment that would ban it. Even if it lost, that would be a nightmare. E. J. Graff writes in The American Prospect.
Before the challenge to Prop 8 was brought to federal court by the American Foundation for Equal Rights and its lead lawyers, Olson and David Boies, other longtime same-sex marriage litigators focused more on challenging laws that prohibit gay marriage at the state level.
When Olson and Boies brought this, there was a fear by some members of the gay rights community that you could get an adverse ruling in federal court that would slow political momentum and shut legal doors, says Jane Schacter, a professor at Stanford Law School.
The preferred strategy was to go state by state, picking the states very carefully and working to legalize gay marriage at the state level.
<more>
Hours after winning a landmark case in a California federal appeals court that struck down the states ban on gay marriage, lawyer Theodore B. Olson, who had filed a lawsuit against the ban known as Proposition 8, talked about the odds of the Supreme Court taking up the case.
This issue will go to the Supreme Court, I think it will go to the Supreme Court in this case, he told MSNBCs Rachel Maddow.
But because the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit was so specific to Californias unique history with same-sex marriage, some legal analysts believe the justices might pass on the case. Or if the court took it up, it would rule narrowly on Proposition 8 saving the broader question of whether gays and lesbians have a right to marry for another day.
And that would be just fine for some advocates of gay marriage.
If by some chance the Supreme Court decided today that same-sex couples had a right to marry, I could see an enormous outcry and a push for a federal constitutional amendment that would ban it. Even if it lost, that would be a nightmare. E. J. Graff writes in The American Prospect.
Before the challenge to Prop 8 was brought to federal court by the American Foundation for Equal Rights and its lead lawyers, Olson and David Boies, other longtime same-sex marriage litigators focused more on challenging laws that prohibit gay marriage at the state level.
When Olson and Boies brought this, there was a fear by some members of the gay rights community that you could get an adverse ruling in federal court that would slow political momentum and shut legal doors, says Jane Schacter, a professor at Stanford Law School.
The preferred strategy was to go state by state, picking the states very carefully and working to legalize gay marriage at the state level.
<more>
