Appeals court rules California's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional

Fox News ^ | 2/7/2012 | Associated Press

[EagleUSA]

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for likely consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a lower court judge correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedents when he declared in 2010 that Proposition 8 was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/07/appeals-court-rules-californias-same-sex-marriage-ban-unconstitutional/#ixzz1lnwo1NBK

[EagleUSA]

As usual, against the will of the people, AND THE LAW, the 9th CIRCUS court kills the voted law of California. Another "IN YOUR FACE" attempt by the court system to serve as radical liberal activists and tear down our system of law in America. This one should get to the SCOTUS.

[Dilbert San Diego]

One of the major issues to me, and one which nobody seems to be talking about, is that federal law defines marriage as a man and a woman. This lawsuit is in federal court, and the judges decided that the state of California violated federal law, by bringing their marriage law in line with federal law.

Does anyone else see that we’re in Orwell’s 1984 with this type of legal reasoning?

If federal law defines marriage as a man and a woman, and a state decides to define marriage in the same manner, how can that state be violating federal law, when they define marriage in the same way as does the federal law?

And why are none of the talking heads talking about this crazy legal reasoning?

[circlecity]

"One of the major issues to me, and one which nobody seems to be talking about, is that federal law defines marriage as a man and a woman."

I don't know if the court even addressed this inescapable issue but the unavoidable consequence of this ruling is it implicitly holds the DOMA unconstitutional. These two, the holding and the Act cannot be reconciled under the same constitutional analysis.

[RicocheT]

The liberal courts continue to degrade the concept of federalism in our Constitution. One aspect of federalism is that the states continue to have powers and rights not given to the central government or guaranteed to the people. It also allows innovation as things such as welfare reform started in the states, not in Washington.

Federalism is to limit the central government’s power and allows the states to have different ways to handle matters historically done at the state level. Marriage is one of these areas. Marriage records and what qualified as a marriage was always local or state.

Most criminal laws were state matters, but now the feds have so many criminal penalties on acts once handled at the state level that we all are subject to prosecution for acts once thought benign such as dumping a bit of dirt on a spot we didn’t realize could be called a wetland.

[douginthearmy]

In order to clarify to the California voters and expedite the process of future law making, the court explained that “Stuff we like is constitutionally protected and can’t be regulated” and “stuff we don’t like is unconstitutional”. Using the “stuff we like” metric will clearly help future initiatives and further streamline the lawmaking process.

[Vaduz]

This one should get to the SCOTUS.
I wouldn’t put much faith in the SCOTUS after they allowed imminent domain law.They tend to be going south on laws.