As someone with a legal background, I’m not sure that there isn’t five votes to uphold Walker’s decision given the very specific facts in this case and the current makeup of SCOTUS.

First, the facts of the case involve the majority of Californians TAKING AWAY an EXISTING right (albeit a right for just 5 months) through popular referendum. If you have knowledge of Romer v. Evans, it could be argued that this is a parallel case of a majority taking away a minority’s right for the purpose of expressing moral disapproval. Justice Kennedy voted with the majority on that case, just as he voted with the majority in Lawrence v. Texas. Justice Kennedy might be more sympathetic to the legal argument that Bois and Olsen (and Walker) had asserted because it includes BOTH those aforementioned court opinions.

As for your assertion that a SCOTUS ruling against gay marriage will set us back: it may or it may not. I’m convinced that SCOTUS will one day have to rule on the constitutionality of gay marriage because like it or not some states (i.e. Alabama, Montana, Mississippi, etc.) will likely not adopt gay marriage on its own, esp. since some states would have to first REPEAL state constitutional amendments by popular vote. So, SCOTUS WILL have to consider gay marriage one day.

I figure, with demographics changing, that gay marriage may be the law of the land in 20-35 years. The way I figure, we can have the issue before SCOTUS in the next couple of years with Olsen and Bois arguing (they’re still in the prime of their legal careers) and either win or lose. If we lose, then SCOTUS will have to decide the issue in 20-35 years anyway. It can have egg on its face (like it did in Lawrence v. Texas- which overturned Bowers v. Hardwick and result in Justice Kennedy writing in his opinion that “Bowers was decided wrongly THEN and it is Wrong NOW.”

I don’t think they would, considering the fast track they’ve put this case on.

Granted, his “defense” (through his counsel) consisted of thanking the judge for his time and sitting down, but technically he and the AG were defendants. ADF tried to have them placed on the side of proponents but that was denied.

I guess when SCOTUS rules one of us will have to eat crow.

I’m curious. Did you read the ruling by Walker in its entirety?

We don’t want none uv dem dar homeosexuals having the same rights as god fearing jesus loving rednecks, so what if our state goes belly up and we can’t afford to do anything, at least dem homeosexuals won’t have equal rights.

Mark, you’re wrong, plain and simple.

Why?

You would have a point about it being a “de facto veto” if ALL initiatives had to then be argued in court. Then yes, the governor and AG could de facto veto anything they didn’t like, but that’s not the case here, is it?

Had the plantiffs not sued or had the judge thrown the case out, Prop 8 would be law.

I find it completely ridiculous that you expect an elected official charged with defending the state AND FEDERAL CONSTITUTION to NOT use their judgement when decided which cases to spend taxpayer funds on and which ones not to bother with.

Elected officials are not sockpuppets. If we wanted that system of government, we wouldn’t need representatives, we would simply use complex polling machines that spit out whatever legislation was most popular. We elect people because we expect THEM to use THEIR judgement.

And please explain how a loss would set us back many years. By the time SCOTUS hears the case it’s very likely that CA will have overturned Prop 8 at the polls so the ruling will be moot since it will only declare Prop 8 constitutional.

It wouldn’t declare gay marriage illegal across the country and it would make gay marriage illegal where it is now legal and it wouldn’t make it any more illegal than it already is in states where it’s already illegal.

I don’t understand this argument that a loss at SCOTUS would set us back years. It would be a temporary psychological loss but, by that time, this train will have already left the station. Just look at how far the country has moved on this question in the last year alone. Imagine how much further we will have moved in another two years. This movement could be influential to SCOTUS but even if it isn’t it will not be stopped by an unfavorable SCOTUS ruling. It would simply put us back to going state by state the way we are now.

If your concern is that we need to wait until we get a more favorable SCOTUS you’re will to wait a LONG time. Probably longer than it would take for us to win marriage piecemeal, state by state. The the political winds are blowing we could end up with a Republican President in a couple of years and would could VERY likely end up with a Republican Senate then, OR SOONER. So the likelihood of a more progressive SCOTUS in the next 20 years is probably more remote than the likelihood of winning this thing on the ground.

Either way, I don’t think we have anything to lose and EVERYTHING to gain.