Appeals court strikes down California's marriage ban
California took marriage away from gay men and lesbians again. An appeals court saw that as a breach of the constitution.
On 7 February 2012, the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco declared California's "Proposition 8" unconstitutional. The ruling was narrow, by two votes to one.
The background was a legal back and forth. In May 2008, the California Supreme Court had granted same-sex couples the right to marry. Around eighteen thousand couples said "I do" in the months that followed. In November of the same year, however, a narrow majority voted for a constitutional amendment stating that only marriage between a man and a woman was valid. Marriages already concluded remained valid, but new ones were no longer possible.
Two couples sued. Because the California authorities refused to defend the ban, its sponsors took on this role. A federal judge ruled in favour of the plaintiffs in 2010, and the sponsors appealed.
The appeals court deliberately chose a narrow path. It did not decide whether same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry. What was decisive was that California had taken away from a minority a right it already had, without a legitimate reason. Judge Stephen Reinhardt stated that the ban served only to lessen the dignity of gay men and lesbians.
A side issue was remarkable. The sponsors had asked for the trial court's ruling to be set aside because Judge Vaughn Walker had been in a relationship with a man for years. He had been biased, they argued. The court rejected this argument.
The celebrations still had to wait. The ruling remained on hold until all appeals had been exhausted. Only in June 2013 could same-sex couples marry again in California, after the Supreme Court decided that the sponsors had had no standing to appeal at all.