Appeals Court Declares California's Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional - East Idaho News
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Appeals Court Declares California’s Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

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Getty 020712 Prop8 2?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1328638577347Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(SAN FRANCISCO) — A federal appeals court in California on Tuesday struck down Proposition 8, the controversial ballot measure passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

About 18,ooo same sex couples had obtained marriage licenses in the state before the ballot initiative was passed.

Prop 8 “amounts to a distinct constitutional violation because the Equal Protection Clause protects minority groups from being targeted for the deprivation of an existing right without legitimate reason,” the court said.

“By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the People of California violated the Equal Protection Clause.”

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Judge Steven Reinhardt, writing for the majority, said the court had decided the issue on the “narrowest grounds.”

“We do not doubt the importance of the more general questions presented to us concerning the rights of same-sex couples to marry, nor do we doubt that these questions will likely be resolved in other states, and for the nation as a whole, by other courts,” he wrote. “For now, it suffices to conclude that the People of California may not, consistent with the Federal Constitution, add to their state Constitution a provision that has no more practical effect than to strip gays and lesbians of their right to use the official designation that the State and society give to committed relationships, thereby adversely affecting the status and dignity of the members of a disfavored class.”

The narrow ruling, specific to California, means the case is less likely to reach the Supreme Court.

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