Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The case has been before the judge

I've finally seen several summaries (one, two, three, and four -- I'm sure one of them has a link to a video of the entire 2.5 hours of the proceedings) of the Calif. gay marriage ban before the 9th Circuit Court on Monday. The proceedings didn't say much new. This is, after all, a request to revisit a case quite thoroughly argued.

The anti-gay side included a lawyer for the deputy clerk of Imperial County. He was there because the first order of business was to determine if the anti-gay people in the court had standing to bring the appeal. The rules say that those bringing appeal will be harmed because the lower court told them something they had to do. Most of the anti-gay crowd would only be harmed through an affront to their religion, so they found a deputy clerk who would have to actually write out marriage licenses for gay couples and be annoyed at having to do so. However, the lawyer for this hapless clerk was unprepared for his moment in the spotlight, not even knowing if the person he represented was elected or appointed. The judges gave off strong vibes of why are you wasting our time.

It seems the three-judge panel wants to rule in favor of gay marriage, but are having a hard time getting past the issue of standing.

We won't know the ruling for a few months. There are several possible outcomes, but no need for a lot of effort to sort through them now.

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