From AFER's press release last night:
Attorneys for the Plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger tonight filed a motion with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit opposing the emergency motion for stay pending appeal filed by Proposition 8 Official Proponents.
“The Proponents' motion, while exceptionally lengthy, does not come close to showing they have a strong chance of winning on appeal, which is what they must demonstrate to get a stay,” said Theodore Boutrous, attorney for the Plaintiffs. “And they completely fail to show that they or anyone else will be irreparably harmed — or harmed at all — by allowing people to get married while the appellate process proceeds. The public interest strongly favors allowing Chief Judge Walker's ruling to take effect immediately.
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Jerry Brown is once again urging the courts to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. You'll recall he made a similar request after Judge Walker's initial ruling last week. The AP reports:
Attorney General Jerry Brown urged a federal appeals court Friday to waste no time in allowing gay marriages to resume in California now that a lower court has overturned the state's same-sex marriage ban. The brief legal papers came in response to efforts by same-sex marriage opponents to get the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals to block a lower court judge's ruling striking down Proposition 8 from taking effect next week.
Said Brown: "While there is still the potential for limited administrative burdens should future marriages of same-sex couples be later declared invalid, these potential burdens are outweighed by the district court's conclusion, based on the overwhelming evidence, that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional,
Brown is running for the governorship against Republican Meg Whitman and the Ebay CEO has said time and time again that she does not support marriage equality. She's issued only guarded statements about the Prop 8 ruling: "… my view is the process needs to go on here. We should not have an administrative action that creates uncertainty at this juncture, so my advice is let's let the legal process continue."
Politico best sums up her strategy: "Since Whitman supports Prop. 8, she'll likely avoid the issue altogether in order to attract wavering Democrats and independents."
Also, The LA Times today published an opinion piece by Harvard professor Michael Klarman who focuses on public opinion and judicial rulings. He uses Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 as an example: "Present-day perspectives on past judicial decisions shift as public opinion changes. When Brown was decided, Americans were almost evenly divided on whether it was right. Today, well over 90% of the country agrees that state-mandated school segregation is unconstitutional. Since at least 1970, no prospective justice could have been confirmed for the Supreme Court without an unqualified endorsement of Brown. Ultimately, Americans evaluate court decisions according to the justness of the result, not on whether judges showed appropriate deference to legislatures or strayed from precedent and original understanding."
