Advertisement
 
YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsTrials
(Page 2 of 2)

Gay marriage supporters fear Supreme Court's ruling was an omen

When justices intervened to stop proceedings from airing online, some saw sympathy for supporters of Proposition 8 - and a lack of faith in the district judge who will first decide the measure's fate.

January 17, 2010|By David G. Savage

However, other legal experts question the timing of the California lawsuit. Cruz was one of them. "I was concerned this was being pushed too early in the struggle for marriage equality," he said. He noted that in the 1950s, the Supreme Court refused to strike down laws against interracial marriage, even though it had declared school segregation to be unconstitutional. The justices waited until 1967, when more than two-thirds of the states allowed blacks and whites to marry.

Several California law professors who said they supported gay rights worried about a 9th Circuit ruling that broadly endorsed same-sex marriage.

"The worst-case scenario is a 9th Circuit ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. That will force the Supreme Court's hand, and it will lead to a bad precedent," said Vikram Amar, a law professor at UC Davis and a former court clerk. "I don't see the five justices to affirm that. There may not be two or three even."

Currently, he said, gay marriage is the law in Iowa and in parts of New England, and "I don't see Anthony Kennedy viewing that as the national norm."

david.savage@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maura Dolan in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Advertisement
Los Angeles Times Articles
|
|
|