Update 5 is interesting. One of the arguments against Prop 8 was that it denied same-sex couples significant rights that were available to married couples. If pp 39-40 do in fact state that the only thing Prop 8 did was bar same sex couples from obtaining marriage licenses and referring to themselves by the label "married", then I have to wonder why this right is so important.
UPDATE 2: (Jazz) Link to the full decision for your perusal.
UPDATE 4: (Allahpundit) I can't copy/paste the key part for some reason, so scroll down to the bottom of page 46 of the majority opinion and read from there to the bottom of page 48. The Ninth Circuit could have gone four ways here: (1) They could have found a fundamental right to marry whomever you wish regardless of gender; (2) they could have found that gays are a historically persecuted "suspect class" and therefore laws discriminating against them are invalid unless there's a very compelling state interest at stake; (3) they could have found more narrowly that Prop 8 serves no rational purpose in advancing any state interest, in which case they wouldn't have to reach any of the big questions about gays or marriage to find the law unconstitutional; (4) they could have upheld the law.
Number four was never going to happen with a court this liberal, but numbers one and two were possibilities. Instead, they went the third route, which was the tamest possible way to strike Prop 8 down as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The key Supreme Court precedent here, and the subject of most of the jousting between the majority and the dissent, is the 1996 case Romer v. Evans, in which Anthony Kennedy wrote for a majority of six in striking down a Colorado law that expressly barred any "special rights" from being granted to gays. Kennedy also took the tame option in that case, passing on the issue of whether gays are a "suspect class" and finding instead that Colorado's law was invalid because there was no rational purpose to its discrimination. The question before the Ninth Circuit was whether there's a rational purpose to discriminating against gays specifically in the context of marriage; read the opinions yourself for the back and forth about marriage and procreation on that. I'm intrigued, though, as to why the famously liberal Stephen Reinhardt wasn't more aggressive in his majority opinion. Did he want to find that gays are a "suspect class" under the Equal Protection Clause, which would therefore have warranted strict judicial scrutiny of Prop 8, but couldn't get the other judge in the majority to go along? Or was this a strategic decision, figuring that if he followed Kennedy's logic in Romer v. Evans closely, this ruling would have a better shot of being upheld by the Ninth Circuit en banc and, eventually, by the Supremes themselves? If the goal was to force the High Court to rule on it, then the strategy should have been to be as bold as possible and create a circuit split on the core constitutional issues at stake. Reinhardt didn't do that. Curious.
Update 5: (Allahpundit) The other key passage, I think, starts on page 39 of Reinhardt's opinion and runs through page 40. He notes that Prop 8 did nothing to deny gays the rights traditionally associated with marriage, which are granted under California's domestic partnership law, but merely the designation of "marriage" itself. That's key to the ultimate ruling that Prop 8 served no rational purpose in advancing a legitimate state interest. If all you're doing is denying gays the label and not the attendant benefits of marriage, then what is there to the law except pure stigma?
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