Appeals Court Declares Prop. 8 Unconstitutional

Posted on Feb 7, 2012

AP / Jeff Chiu

Billy Bradford carries an American flag and a rainbow flag before a hearing of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in December 2010.

Here’s some real progress and some good news: On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco decided, in a 2-1 ruling, that California’s infamous Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban approved by voters in 2008, was unconstitutional. Now, on to the Supreme Court.  —KA

Hey, policy wonks: Read the text of the ruling here.

Los Angeles Times:

“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.

The ruling upheld a decision by retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who struck down the ballot measure in 2010 after holding an unprecedented trial on the nature of sexual orientation and the history of marriage.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.