Today In History, 2013: U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of California’s Prop 8

Jim Burroway

June 26th, 2016

supreme_court_doma_prop_8On the same day that the U.S Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (above), the court also issued another ruling that was near and dear to Californians. In a 5-4 decision, the court declined to review the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision which upheld a lower court’s finding that Proposition 8, the 2008 Constitutional Amendment that banned same-sex marriage, was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that because the state of California declined to defend Prop 8, the ban’s supporters did not have standing to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. And because they didn’t have standing to bring the case to the highest court, the Court ruled that they also lacked standing to appeal to the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court instructed the Ninth to vacate its ruling, which sent the case all the way back to the orignal district court ruling.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out when high-powered lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies made their bold announcement in 2009 that they would challenge Prop 8 in federal court. It was a controversial move. Lambda Legal and the ACLU opposed the suit, fearing that a federal challenge at that time might do more harm than good if there was an adverse ruling. But Olson and Boies insisted that not only could they win marriage equality for California, but that they could also leapfrog the long-held state-by-state strategy favored by other gay rights organizations and win marriage equality for everyone at the Supreme Court. In the end, they only achieved the first half of their objectives, and Hollingsworth v. Perry has been legally inconsequential in the two score federal and state court rulings since then overturning marriage bans in other states. But by restoring same-sex marriage rights for Californians, this Supreme Court decision doubled the number of Americans living in marriage equality states in one fell swoop. Another accomplishment is perhaps less tangible, but no less important: the discussions about marriage equality prompted by Hollingsworth as it made its way through the court system undoubtedly contributed to Americans’ growing acceptance of same-sex marriage.

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