In breaking news, the California Supreme Court has agreed to hear the consolidated cases involving Proposition 8.
This issue has received mulitple petitions from such diverse groups as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Council of Churches requesting that the California Supreme Court overturn Proposition 8 as a violation of the protections afforded under California's equal protection clause.
This is a good sign. The Court could have dismissed the cases or required that the cases be reviewed by the lower courts. This indicates that the Court takes the constitutional issue here as very important.
UPDATE: Link to another diary : http://www.dailykos.com/... covering this subject
More Below
UPDATE 2: What the court asked the parties to respond to in their briefs:
- Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution?
(2) Does Proposition 8 violate the separation-of-powers doctrine under the California Constitution?
(3) If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?
http://www.towleroad.com/...
The Court will hear the cases in March 2009. The issue before the Court is whether the correct procedure for changing equal protection in California is through the proposition process (that requires a bare majority) or the revision process (that requires a more strenous process for amending the CA Constitution).
To understand the wide variety of legal issues equal protection analysis involved I recommend reading the petitions by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (it spells out that this is about more than gays).
The LA Times in related reporting mentions a case which may offer us additional tea leaves as to the eventual outcome in this case:
"In 1966, the California Supreme Court struck down an initiative that would have permitted racial discrimination in housing. Voters had approved the measure, a repeal of a fair housing law, by a 2-to-1 margin. Opponents challenged it on equal protection grounds, not as a constitutional revision."
http://www.latimes.com/...
If true, this is very good for us. It's true that we are arguing procedural issues, but that issue grows out of equal protection and fundamental right analysis. If anything, our case is slightly stronger because it's not a total bar on an amendment. Rather, it is a claim that the process for amending fundamental rights under equal protection analysis is the revision process.