Gay Marriage

A California group isn't surprised a three-judge panel of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco decided to stay the ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker, striking down Proposition 8.

The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), a non-profit legal organization specializing in cases involving religious liberties, firmly supports Proposition 8. Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Institute, does not think the lower court judge is capable of ruling impartially.

"He is openly engaging in homosexuality. That is his lifestyle; that is who he is; that's his identity," Dacus notes. "So he had his own identity, his own lifestyle on trial before him, and I think it would be very difficult for someone like him to rule differently. To rule differently, in a way, would be to rule against himself"...

San Francisco (AP) - Gay couples who had been gearing up to get married in California this week had to put their wedding plans on hold once again after a federal appeals court said it first wanted to consider the constitutionality of the state's same-sex marriage ban.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals imposed an emergency stay Monday on a trial court judge's ruling overturning the ban, known as Proposition 8. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker had ordered state officials to stop enforcing the measure starting Wednesday, clearing the way for county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

"It's saddening just to know that we still have to keep waiting for this basic human right," Marcia Davalos, of Los Angeles, a health care advocate who had planned to marry her partner, Laurette Healey, said when the stay was issued Monday. "We were getting excited and then all of a sudden it's like, 'Ugh.' It's a roller-coaster"...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The federal judge who overturned California's same-sex marriage ban has more bad news for the measure's backers: He doubts they have the right to challenge his ruling that gay couples can begin marrying next week.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Thursday rejected a request to delay his decision barring Proposition 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. One of the reasons, the judge said, is he's not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since they would not be affected by or responsible for implementing his ruling.

By contrast, same-sex couples are being denied their constitutional rights every day they are prohibited from marrying, Walker said...

Judicial activism has again trumped voters' rights. That's the assessment of attorneys reacting to Thursday's turn of events in the seemingly never-ending legal battle over California's Proposition 8.

A California judge who last week overturned Prop. 8 yesterday rejected a request to delay his decision striking down Prop. 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker gave marriage traditionalists until August 18 at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific) to obtain a ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on whether homosexual "marriages" should start before the court considers their broader appeal...

SAN FRANCISCO - The federal judge who overturned California's same-sex "marriage" ban is set to rule Thursday on whether homosexual marriages should resume immediately in the state or await an appeals court's input.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker announced late Wednesday that he would issue his decision by noon on requests to impose a stay that would keep Proposition 8 in effect while its sponsors appeal his decision.

The announcement came after lawyers for homosexual couples, California Gov. Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed legal motions Friday asking that same-sex marriages be allowed to resume immediately...

A judicial analyst with Focus on the Family says recently sworn-in Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan would be a sure vote favoring same-sex "marriage."

Kagan was sworn into the Supreme Court on Saturday. Legal experts say she will support same-gender marriage. But Bruce Hausknecht with Focus on the Family points out that Kagan may not be the only one on the bench who would do that.

"I firmly believe that Elena Kagan is a solid, liberal vote for same-sex marriage," he states. "The question is perhaps what does Justice [Anthony] Kennedy think about this. Since he wrote the Lawrence v. Texas opinion, he's provided evidence that he's in the camp of same-sex marriage"...

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother.

Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father.

“Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted,” the judge wrote in finding of fact No. 71 in his opinion...

SAN FRANCISCO – California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a motion Friday calling for resumption of same-sex weddings in the state.

Brown filed the motion after U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker previously overturned Proposition 8, California's voter-approved gay marriage ban.

Walker ruled the law violates federal equal protections and due process laws...

SAN FRANCISCO - The first word on whether California's same-sex marriage ban passes scrutiny under the U.S. Constitution is scheduled to come down Wednesday when a federal judge issues his ruling in a landmark case.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has reached a decision on whether to uphold or overturn the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8 and plans to publish his opinion in the afternoon, court spokeswoman Lynn Fuller said.

His verdict comes in response to a lawsuit brought by two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco seeking to invalidate the law as an unlawful infringement on the civil rights of gay men and lesbians...

TRENTON, NJ - The New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to hear a case from six same-sex couples seeking the right to "marry," saying the case needs to wind its way through the lower courts first.

Gay couples unsuccessfully sued New Jersey four years ago for the right to marry. They claim that by creating civil unions, the state has not fulfilled a court order to treat them the same as heterosexual couples seeking to marry.

The Supreme Court said Monday that it cannot consider whether the civil union law provides equal rights to same-gender couples until there is a trial record....