Last week, the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 litigation asked the 9th Circuit to lift the stay against enforcement of Judge Walker’s decision. With the President’s decision to stop defending DOMA’s constitutionality, the legal team fighting Prop 8 felt that situations had changed enough to reconsider the stay.
The bigger issue seems to be in the way that the Supreme Court has defined the standard for these types of stays. Traditionally, the party seeking the stay has to show not only a likelihood of prevailing on the merits but also that nobody will face undue prejudice due to the stay. Of course, as we know, same-sex couples are facing unnecessary and painful delays.
But the issue that I found most intriguing, and that the City and County of San Francisco focused on in their brief (PDF) was the question of jurisdiction. The 9th Circuit has already questioned whether the proponents of Prop 8 have standing to appeal, and the threshhold for a stay is fairly high. So, should there really be a stay?
As the Supreme Court has held, when jurisdiction is unsettled a stay of judgment cannot be maintained. Here, this Court’s certification order makes plain that Proponents have not, to date, met their burden. The stay should be lifted unless and until Proponents establish that this Court has the power to hear their appeal. (SF Brief)
Well, today, the LA Times joined the act, calling for marriages to resume in a speedy manner.
Although the federal courts expedited their handling of the lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, the issues are far from resolved. And now that the California Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in, the case could be delayed for another year or more.
Enough already. Gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to wed while the case works its way through the system. (LAT)
Amen.
Marriage is not a traditional institution of Government. For example: If the US stopped being a country for whatever reason, your marriage still exists. A government can only recognize a marriage, or not recognize one. Thus the term “allowed” to wed is not really correct.
Marriage is covenant/contract between a man and women for the functional purpose of raising kids. Kids and Grand kids take a long time to raise and their are huge benefits to these children to have two dedicated adults and more grandparents in a life long commitments with male and female perspectives looking after them.
Contracts are about rights and responsibilities. For every right their is a responsibility.
There are very few true “marriage rights” mostly their are responsibilities — unless you mean the right to pay for all her credit card bills, the right to share in all legal bills, the right to lose half your stuff and pay child support for years …
Most of all the former marriage rights are long gone – my wife can’t even check my medical records without my written consent (no different than some random stranger), she can’t even get my credit card info changed on her own. Ironically the responsibility parts of marriage have been maintained mostly because they benefit the banks and tax collectors. 🙂 I bet the banks are happy that gays will double up on the responsibility to pay debts.