From Twitter 08-05-2010

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Cali Prop 8 Ruling... and it's future.

If you got an opinion about gay marriage, keep it to yourself. This is about the court case, not about the subject it involved.  In other words, it is a meta-discussion.

So I finally got a chance to read the ruling in the California Proposition 8 federal court case.  A few things stuck out to me:

The petitioners (2 gay couples and an intervening San Francisco government) put on a very proved-fact, science driven case.  It stuck to them, and it paid off... or did it really?  The defendants (Cali Attorney General, the LDS, and a Prop 8 support group) flubbed it, for all the wrong reasons.

• They had a ton of people ready to testify, but yanked all but two back.  Why? They worried about the cameras in the court room, and the delayed telecast, would compromise the safety of their witnesses.  They still kept them out when the US Supreme Court killed the telecast off.  WHY?!?
  
  
• One witness the judge basically threw out in the end because not only could he not back up his testimony with proof and science, he consistently contradicted himself.  Why was he there in the first place?
  
  
• The defense itself kept assuming that the judge was accepting belief as fact.  You can't do that!  That's not allowed in any court! The RIAA tried to do that, and is now being smacked down for it.
  

The thing is, I can't see how a proper defense would be built.  Off hand, I know of no peer-reviewed paper on gay/lesbian couples having disadvantages other than the ability to procreate (but that's why there's adoption).  It's all one's opinion, and that doesn't hold much (if any) weight in a court of law.

So the judge, having basically tossed out the defense's entire case, tried to attack the petitioners... and since it was rock solid (equal rights demand marriage rights for all, California suffers financially for not letting all folks marry, there's no state interest for this type of discrimination), the judge was left to strike it down as unconstitutional two ways to Sunday.
 
But the defendants are appealing!

They got one layer of courts, the Circuit Courts, to go before hitting the Supreme Court.  They have to prove that the judge erred... but they have to overcome their lackluster defense.  I don't see how the judge did commit a reversible error.  If the ruling survives this point, then the findings it documents become indisputable provable fact -- it will be very hard to disprove them.

I do say, they will push to the Supreme Court, and I doubt they will get the full hearing.  I think they'll get a note saying the court will decline to hear it... and they will waste two years to get that note.  I really doubt the Supreme Court will be willing to hear it.

Have you read the entire ruling?  If so, comment here.  Otherwise, it's best you do read it.  I'll wait.