As Expected, Gay Right People Will Challenge Prop. 8 In Court

By: SW

After over 5 million Californias have said NO to same sex marriage, do you think these gay right people and ACLU will give up? Of course not. Once again they want to use the court to overturn a constitutional amendment passed by the majority of Californians. The following is from the LA Times:

Lawyers for same-sex couples said they will argue that the anti-gay-marriage measure was an illegal constitutional revision -- not a more limited amendment, as backers said. The legal action contends that Proposition 8 actually revises the state Constitution by altering such fundamental tenets as equal-protection guarantees. A measure to revise the state Constitution can be placed before voters only by the Legislature Gay-marriage proponents see it differently. "A major purpose of the Constitution is to protect minorities from majorities. Because changing that principle is a fundamental change to the organizing principles of the Constitution itself, only the Legislature can initiate such revisions to the Constitution," said Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

It is a matter of fairness, said Jenny Pizer, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal. "If the voters approved an initiative that took the right to free speech away from women, but not from men, everyone would agree that such a measure conflicts with the basic ideals of equality enshrined in our Constitution. Proposition 8 suffers from he same flaw: It removes a protected constitutional right -- here, the right to marry -- not from all Californians, but just from one group of us," she said.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Equality California and six same-sex couples who did not marry before Tuesday's election but would like to marry now.

The state high court has twice before invalidated measures as illegal revisions, but some legal analysts expressed doubt that the Proposition 8 challenge would succeed.

Similar attempts to overturn anti-gay-marriage measures have failed in Oregon
and Alaska.

A spokesman for San Francisco City Atty. Dennis Herrera said he would also file a legal challenge.