Litigation

National Precedent from Proposition 8 Trial?

By Peter Hardin

The national debate over same-sex marriage that will unfold in a California courtroom beginning next week could lead to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case deciding whether it is legal for gay people to marry nationwide.

Kristin Perry, a lesbian who has four sons with her partner, Sandra Stier, is the title plaintiff in the case named Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Some advocates would like the case to set historical precedent, according to an article by the Associated Press that sets the stage for the upcoming trial.

“This could be our Brown vs. Board of Education,” former Clinton White House adviser Richard Socarides told the AP. The trial will decide a legal challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriages, approved by voters as Proposition 8 in 2008.

It will feature star power, a riveting issue of national controversy, and outside bankrolls. It will capture attention from the new media as well as the news media–it is expected to be videotaped and provided to YouTube for viewers to see on a delayed basis.

Among the previewed trial highlights:

• Theodore Olson, the former U.S. Solicitor General under President George W. Bush, will team with trial lawyer David Boies to challenge the ban. In the fight over the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, they represented Republican Bush and Democrat Al Gore, respectively.
• Trial lawyer Charles Cooper, who worked in the Reagan-era Justice Department, will lead a legal team representing sponsors of the same-sex marriage ban.
• Director Rob Reiner leads a group of liberal Hollywood activists bankrolling the federal challenge.
• Although California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is named in the lawsuit, he opposed the ban–and hasn’t announced a position on the case.
• The trial judge, District Judge Vaughn R. Walker (photo), was named as a Republican to the bench in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush. He “scolded” Schwarzenegger at a pretrial hearing for the governor’s neutrality “on an issue of this magnitude and importance,” according to AP.

To read earlier Gavel Grab posts about Proposition 8 or the trial, click here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 08, 2010 (boomark / email).