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In the never-ending saga that is California’s Prop 8 trial the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals continued the stay that Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker had previously lifted, until oral arguments could be heard on Dec 6th.
“It’s saddening just to know that we still have to keep waiting for this basic human right,” Marcia Davalos, of Los Angeles, a health care advocate who had planned to marry her partner, Laurette Healey, said when the stay was issued Monday. “We were getting excited and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Ugh.’ It’s a roller-coaster.”
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they would not appeal the panel’s decision on the stay to the U.S. Supreme Court and that they were satisfied that their case was being fast-tracked. They also seem confident it is only a matter of time before the ban on gay marriages is overturned in California.
Currently, same-sex couples can legally wed only in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C. California, the most populous state, would be ground-breaking.
[…] existing gay marriages it was then overturned, though the stay on marriages stayed in place as the appeals process continued. Walker, the judge who initially declared it unconstitutional has come under fire as a partnered […]
[…] Proposition 8 has had a rocky history. Passed in November 2008 with 52 percent of the vote, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, it was initially upheld but also maintained the legitimacy of existing gay marriages. It was then overturned, though the stay on marriages stayed in place as the appeals process continued. […]