SCOTUS Gets Prop 8 Overturn Appeal

In addition to the DOMA-related cases that landed on the desks of the Supreme Court this month, today they received an appeal on the overturn of Prop 8. Chris Geidner reports:

Supporters of California's constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying, Proposition 8, have asked the Supreme Court to hear the ongoing challenge to the law in order to reverse an appeals court decision from earlier this year that struck down the amendment as unconstitutional.

Specifically, they ask the court in a filing today to decide "Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman."

Arguing that "[u]nique recognition of a unique relationship in no way disapproves or dishonors other relationships that the State has chosen to recognize differently," the Proposition 8 proponents ask the court to take the case to correct the "manifest errors" of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and "to return to the People themselves this important and sensitive issue."

Geidner notes that AFER has 30 days to respond to the filing. The Supreme Court is on summer recess and will not announce which cases it will review until this fall.

UPDATE: AFER says it plans to oppose the appeal but that they're ready to go before the Supreme Court if they have to.

"This case is about the equal rights guaranteed to all Americans by our Constitution," said Plaintiffs' counsel Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. "Because two federal courts have already concluded that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, gay and lesbian Californians should not have to wait any longer to marry the person they love. We therefore will oppose the petition for a writ of certiorari. However, we recognize that this case presents constitutional issues of national significance, and are ready to defend our victories before the Supreme Court."