Proposition 8 ruling: California anxiously awaits Supreme Court gay marriage announcement

LONG BEACH ? Like many across the country, gay and civil rights activists, as well as courthouses, around Southern California remained eager for word from the Supreme Court today on whether it would consider the issue of gay marriage either in California or nationally.

Justices are expected to decide whether to review a case concerning Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage, but was later knocked down in appeals courts.

Activists had been hoping for news a week ago, and then possibly early this morning, but are still in limbo.

"We're on tenterhooks," said long-time Long Beach activist Sharon Raphael, who married her partner, Mina Meyer, before Prop. 8 was passed.

"We're anxiously awaiting (a decision), as is the rest of the country," said Ron Sylvester, who chairs the board of directors at the Gay and Lesbian Center of Greater Long Beach.

Experts said the delay in the decision could be because a number of gay-marriage cases are before the court and there many discussion on which, if any, the court would consider and if some or all could be combined.

"There may be other (gay) marriage cases" the court is considering hearing, said Jack Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. "That's the speculation."

If the high court does not hear the California case, it would clear the way for gay marriages to proceed. A federal appeals court found Proposition 8 unconstitutional and

that would stand if the Supreme Court demurs.

If the court decides to hear the case, gay marriage would remain on hold.

If the Supreme Court strikes down Prop. 8, California won't be the first state to have legal gay marriage - it won't even be the first one to do so this year: Maine, Maryland and Washington voters all approved same-sex marriage in their state this year. But it'll have a major impact if it happens, according to Pitney.

"Size matters. California's the biggest state, by far. California is the center of popular culture, both in America and worldwide," he said. "If gay marriage is the law in the land of California, that'll have a huge impact."

If if the Supreme Court does not hear the case, it will be up to the appellate court to lift the current stay on marriages, according to Elizabeth Knox, a public information officer with the Los Angeles Registrar Recorder County Clerk.

"At that point we would begin issuing licenses at Norwalk and our branch offices," Knox said.

"We have a contingency plan if volume increases," she added.

Pitney, who has been teaching for more than 25 years and saw the furor generated when Ellen DeGeneres - then the star of a struggling sitcom - came out of the closet, has watched public opinion regarding homosexuality and gay marriage (DeGeneres married television actress Portia de Rossi in 2008) change dramatically in that time.

"The shift in public opinion has been really strong. I don't think anyone, on either side, would have predicted that public opinion would have moved as much as it has," he said.

In his classroom, however, the shift hasn't been quite as dramatic as it's been among the public at large: "College students have always been more open to same sex marriage than older people. ... For them, it's a headscratcher as to why anyone would oppose this."

Even if the high court says that same sex marriage is a guaranteed right to all Americans, Pitney said he doesn't expect the battles to stop.

"Opposition to same-sex marriage has very deep religious roots, and is not just social convention," he said. "The Supreme Court may end up that the 14 th Amendment mandates gay marriage, but the controversy won't end."

Source: http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_22146408/proposition-8-ruling-california-anxiously-awaits-supreme-court?source=rss_viewed

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