BERKELEY — When six of seven members of the California Supreme Court gathered in Berkeley on Friday for a conference on the role of the court, their every facial tic and remark was scrutinized for signs of whether they would vote to overturn Proposition 8.
Topics of discussion included the death penalty and private judging, but the lawyers in the conference room on the UC Berkeley campus grew especially rapt when Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar announced discussion of the court's historic May 15 decision that guaranteed "the pre-Proposition 8 right of gays and lesbians to marry."
The court is pondering legal challenges to Proposition 8, which restored the ban on same-sex marriage. While the justices listened to what others had to say about their role in same-sex marriage, another lawsuit was filed before them to overturn the initiative.
That legal challenge -- brought by groups including the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund -- brings to four the number of lawsuits asking the court to overturn Proposition 8.
The court may act on the challenges as early as next week.
Although the conference on the role of the state high court was planned months ago, its topics squarely addressed the heated legal and political questions now swirling around the justices and the fate of same-sex marriage.
Former Gov. Pete Wilson, one of the speakers, said the court should defer to the other branches of government and refrain from making policy on its own.
An appellate lawyer on a panel observed the court's obligation "to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority."
And justices from other states warned that voters are increasingly throwing state Supreme Court justices off the bench after heated campaigns by special interest groups.
Pepperdine University Law School Dean Kenneth W. Starr, speaking on a panel that discussed the court's rulings, called same-sex marriage "the defining social issue of our time."
The marriage ruling not only was "the biggest blockbuster of this court's term but perhaps the most important decision handed down in the United States by any court," he said.
Starr had opposed same-sex marriage before the court, but he read aloud from the majority opinion in a stirring voice as the justices listened.
