Prop. 8 Sponsors Scramble to Stop Fabulous California Gay Weddings [Update]

By Doug Barry  |  June 30, 2013 | 4:00pm
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The sponsors of the rapidly-necrotizing Proposition 8 are learning a fairly painful lesson in not getting their way this weekend as they watch Californians gay marry each other up and down the land of happy cows and terrifying geological phenomena. Clearly not thrilled that the Supreme Court assured them that they had no legal right to defend Prop. 8, sponsors of the ballot initiative filed an emergency request with the Court asking them to please, please, puh-leeeeaaasssee stop all the same-sex weddings in California on the grounds that the Court’s Prop. 8 decision was not legally final.

Don’t fret, though, about California backtracking on this week’s same-sex marriage progress — according to the LA Times, an attorney for the challengers of Prop. 8 expressed confidence that the request from Prop. 8 sponsors would be denied. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who hears cases involving the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an order late Friday allowing same-sex marriages to resume in light of Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling requiring the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in the 13 states (and a district!) where they’re legal (Kennedy did, however, dissent on the Court’s Prop. 8 decision that the initiative’s proponents couldn’t stand in place of state officials to defend their measures in federal court).

The Prop. 8 propping organization ProtectMarriage took issue with the 9th Circuit Court allowing same-sex marriages to resume in California, nominally because the 9th Circuit ordinarily waits 25 days before acting on a Supreme Court decision, but really because ProtectMarriage is terrified at the prospect of having to adjust its worldview to include same-sex couples living in marital bliss (or discord).

From the Times:

ProtectMarriage contended that the 9th Circuit should not have taken any action in the case until Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8 was technically final. The group said high court rulings are not binding for 25 days, a period in which a party in a case can ask for reconsideration.
The 9th Circuit normally waits 25 days before acting on a case just decided by the Supreme Court. But in a surprise move, a three-judge panel that included liberal jurist Stephen Reinhardt lifted a hold it had placed on a 2010 injunction ordering state officials to stop enforcing the gay marriage ban.

ProtectMarriage alluded to “corruption” in the 9th Circuit’s Friday announcement, issuing a statement saying how much of a coincidence it was that same-sex plaintiffs “their media teams, San Francisco City Hall, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the California attorney general all happened to be in position to perform same-sex marriages just minutes after the 9th Circuit’s ‘unexpected’ announcement.” Hmm, that is suspicious, isn’t it, ProtectMarriage? I mean, it’s not like same-sex couples in California have been waiting a long fucking time to get married or anything.

Prop. 8 sponsors ask U.S. Supreme Court to stop same-sex weddings [LA Times]

Update: Justice Anthony Kennedy denied the long-shot attempt to pump the brakes on same-sex marriage in California.

Image via Getty, Kevork Djansezian

 
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