calsupremesThis just in: By a 4-3 vote, the California Supreme Court has overturned the voter-approved gay marriage ban. Here’s the opinion, authored by Chief Justice Ron George and signed by Justices Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdegar and Carlos Moreno. Justice Marvin Baxter authored a separate ruling, concurring in part and dissenting in part (Justice Ming Chin joined Justice Baxter’s ruling). Justice Carol Corrigan also concurred in part and dissented in part. Click here for an early AP report, here for a story from the SF Chronicle and here for an earlier LB post on the case.

The Court has ruled that the state of California’s interest in upholding the ban — that is, as the court explains, “the interest in retaining the traditional and well-established definition of marriage” — does not meet constitutional muster. It “cannot properly be viewed as a compelling state interest for purposes of the equal protection clause, or as necessary to serve such an interest.”

From the majority opinion:

Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.
First, the exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage clearly is not necessary in order to afford full protection to all of the rights and benefits that currently are enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples. . . . Second, retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children . . . . Third, because of the widespread disparagement that gay individuals historically have faced, it is all the more probable that excluding same-sex couples from the legal institution of marriage is likely to be viewed as reflecting an official view that their committed relationships are of lesser stature than the comparable relationships of opposite-sex couples.
[R]etaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise — now emphatically rejected by this state — that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects “second-class citizens” who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples.

From the dissents:

Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majority’s startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage — an understanding recently confirmed by an initiative law — is no longer valid. California statutes already recognize same-sex unions and grant them all the substantive legal rights this state can bestow. If there is to be a further sea change in the social and legal understanding of marriage itself, that evolution should occur by similar democratic means. The majority forecloses this ordinary democratic process, and, in doing so, oversteps its authority.
[W]e should hesitate to use our authority to take one side in an ongoing political debate. The accommodation of disparate views is democracy’s essential challenge. Democracy is never more tested than when its citizens honestly disagree, based on deeply held beliefs. In such circumstances, the legislative process should be given leeway to work out the differences. It is inappropriate for the judiciary to interrupt that process and impose the views of its individual members, while the opinions of the people are still evolving.