Today’s the big day: The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has announced it will issue its ruling today in the Proposition 8 appeal case, Perry v. Brown, by 1pm EST/10am PST.
Should the court rule in our favor, it will uphold the August 2010 decision from Perry v. Schwarzenegger that found Prop 8, the ballot initiative banning same-sex marriages in California, to be unconstitutional.
We’ll report the verdict as it’s announced and provide coverage from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the sole sponsor of the Perry case.
rf
Well this news broke yesterday afternoon, about the time Queerty had the Italian PM story at the top of the page, 13 stories ago. Does “We’ll report the verdict as it’s announced” mean you’ll get to it after spending this afternoon inspecting photos of Katy Perry for stray zits?
christopher di spirito
I am very nervous about this. The Ninth District Court is notoriously erratic and I wouldn’t dare make a prediction about how they decide.
Meowzer
I don’t think there is any way this is not going to the Supreme Court. No matter the decision, one side will appeal and send the case off again. If Prop 8 is overturned, the homophobes will appeal. If they win, we’ll have to go to court for our rights. No matter, this isn’t over.
bystander
It will be a 2-1 decision, whether that’s to uphold the lower court decision or overturn it is anyone’s guess.
Adam
@rf: Queerty reported the original verdict before NPR.
lasagna king
@rf: Queerty didnt say they were breaking the story, just mentioning the case. Sheesh, wake up on the wrong side of the caulrdon?
rf
@lasagna king: Of course they’re not breaking the story, it was 15 hours old before they got to it. I know Queerty is not a legitimate news service, eventhough they sometimes like to think they are, I just find it hilarious that they’d claim timeliness in their reporting, as if this is the place to stay on top of the news, when taking so long to report a huge announcement in what has arguably been Topic A in the LGBT community for the past 2 years.
@Adam: And I’m sure JoeMyGod, Pams HouseBlend and Courage Campaign also got the news out there before NPR.
the crustybastard
I’ll only be surprised if the judiciary doesn’t Bowers v Hardwick us every inch of the way, that is to say, they’re going to decide every fundamental, Constitutional, and civil rights case as if gay people exercising those rights suddenly give those rights an entirely unique and novel dimension.
It was already settled that adults had a fundamental and Constitutional right to sexual privacy. Bowers v Hardwick presented the issue as “is there a fundamental right to homosexual sodomy?” and answered 5-4* in the negative — as if homosexual people aren’t adults, sodomy isn’t sex, and being gay puts you outside the protection of the Constitution.
And we got to deal with that steaming pile of shit as a binding SCOTUS precedent for 17 years.
Most judges — even at the highest levels — simply skip over the crucial preliminary question in determining the constitutionality of any right or liberty interest where the government encroaches or meddles. That question is: why does the government need to do this? “The government wishes to create and define this minority for the express purpose of discriminating against them because they’re icky,” is never a valid reason — but a reason governments unfailingly resort to.
American courts were created to prevent governments from doing mean, stupid shit, not to bless it. However, our current timid, toothless, conservative judiciary has decided that its their job to rubber-stamp every bit of legislative nincompoopery that comes down the pike, rather than doing their job, which is to check the effect of ill-begotten laws.
Gah. This country has rendered “pessimistic” my default setting.
It was not always so.
(*Byron White, Warren Burger, Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O’Connor [majority], Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, John P. Stevens [dissenting])