Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Will the same-sex marriages haters risk a ruling that will affect the whole nation?

Today, the ruling on the prop 8 trial will be announced. The same-sex marriage haters have already filed a motion for a stay of the decision pending appeal if the case is going to be ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Based on the specifics of the motion wording, you can bet it is a win for US!

So, appeal. The current ruling ONLY affects California, and leaves the rest of the country out of the loop. A loss at the appeal court would widen this to a loss for a whole range of states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. and of course, if they appeal it to the US supreme court, it would affect the whole nation.

So, if they want to slow down how many states (have to) recognize same-sex marriages, they would be far better of to not appeal and give away California. Why? There case was a disaster. At the appeals court, they cannot bring new arguments. So, the case will be decided pretty much based on what is now on the record. And that record is, well, shitty at least. Maybe better to qualify it as non-existing.

So, what would be the alternative? Let it stand. Throw California under the train and move on. Because this means that if another gay couple in one of the other states of the union finally wants to be treated as a full citizen, they have to start their own case. With their own lawyer, their own witnesses etc. And this gives the haters one MAJOR opportunity. Time to prepare themselves better. To have real experts. And maybe they will be lucky to find a judge who is more activist and willing to impose his own conservative dogma on the case.

Of course, some day, some case will reach the US supreme court. It can be sooner if they appeal now, or maybe later if they take the loss of one state and try to build a more solid case in the next court battle. The later would be a better strategy, because it they get more favorable evidence into the records, they actually will have a higher change of winning when they finally reach the US supreme court.

But rest assured, they won't be this smart. If their performance at the trial is a indicator, they are so convinced they are right that they are willing to risk it all, just to be right! You almost would think they are actually in favor of same-sex marriage.

And because of that, we have to thank them for helping our cause. So, please, file an appeal and help us to finally ride this country of a grave injustice!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The major reason they will most likely appeal is the fact that Andy Pugno is the lead attorney, and he is running for a seat in Sacramento. He will be shoved under the bus by his own constituents if he doesn't do as they wish.