Historic California Supreme Court Ruling Upholds Constitutional Right to Gay Marriage and Strikes Down Statutes and Initiative

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

As an attorney, my practice upon receiving a ruling from a court, in particular an appellate or reviewing court, has been to take the decision and read from the first page and not immediately go to the concluding paragraphs indicating how the court had ruled and who “won” the case. I have finished reading the court’s decision and the concurring and dissenting opinions and I’m glad I kept up my practice.

In a 4-3 ruling, the California Supreme Court ruled that, even though domestic partnership laws in our state give substantially the same rights and impose substantially the same responsibilities on those who choose to enter into same sex unions, that calling them by a different name—and not marriage—is discriminatory and violates the equal protection and privacy clauses of the California Constitution. My copy of the decision is full of yellow highlights.

When I got to the end of the Court’s decision, I came to the conclusion that, unlike the thousands of cases I have handled, no one really “lost” in this case. The Court explained in great detail how this decision takes away nothing from those, such as myself, who are married to a person of the opposite sex and who take pride in describing ourselves—and our son—as a family.

I know there are some in our state, and elsewhere, who disagree and feel they have lost something here. I hope that they read the Court’s decision and think about their position. After reading it myself, I wonder how anyone could come to the opposite conclusion, including the three dissenting Justices. I understand their reasoning—that this is a political decision that should be dealt with by other branches of government—through legislation or by a vote of the people. But I can’t see how this makes any more sense than allowing legislators, the Governor, or voters to legalize discrimination—as they are not allowed to do on the basis of race, sex, religion, and other grounds.

God bless the honorable court.

More to come—from me and others. For those of you who will not be reading or even looking at the 172 pages of the decision and statements by the Justices, the best link is one set up by the Court for high profile cases.

Here is a good summary of the ruling from the Judicial Council:

The California Supreme Court today held that the California legislative and initiative measures limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state constitutional rights of same-sex couples and may not be used to preclude same-sex couples from marrying. (In re Marriage Cases, S147999.)

The court concluded that permitting opposite-sex couples to marry while affording same-sex couples access only to the novel and less-recognized status of domestic partnership improperly infringes a same-sex couple's constitutional rights to marry and to the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the California Constitution.

The decision directs state officials who supervise the enforcement of the state's marriage laws to ensure that local officials comply with the court's ruling and permit same-sex couples to marry. The decision becomes final in 30 days unless that period is extended by court order.