Judicial Watch Petitions Courts in Support of Calif Prop 8

When leftists are unable to persuade voters to adopt their radical agendas at the ballot box, they turn to the courts. Sure enough, there is a battle raging in California now that has far-reaching implications for the bedrock institution of marriage.

On January 29, 2013, Judicial Watch joined with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in filing an amicus curiae brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of California’s Proposition 8, establishing that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” (On February 7, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional by a vote of 2-1, in a decision the amicus brief says “imputes the worst possible motives to voters.”)

According to the Judicial Watch-AEF amicus brief, should the Supreme Court fail to overturn the Ninth Circuit’s decision, the people of California would be deprived of “the right to decide for themselves the ways in which they want to restrict or liberalize their marriage laws – or not.”

Our amicus continues, “The Ninth Circuit’s sleight of hand decision … constitutes a dangerous erosion of the principle of rational basis review … Furthermore, the Ninth Circuit decision expands the reaches of the Equal Protection clause in such a way as to eclipse the people’s sovereignty to make laws for their own governance … Finally, this [Supreme] Court should find that petitioners have standing to bring this appeal, as a contrary ruling would undermine the people’s rights to initiative and referendum in twenty-six states.”

Before getting into more of the legal issues at play in this lawsuit, let me just pause to re-emphasize this point. Have you ever stopped to think about all of the various ways the Left tries to inappropriately silence the voice of the majority?  On virtually every issue of significance, the Left would rather a judge or a government bureaucrat or some czar tucked away in a cubicle in Washington, DC, issue edicts that we must follow. Or President Obama himself, who “can’t wait” for the American people to catch up to his infinite wisdom, will instead impose his agenda via executive order.

Keep that in mind as you follow the debates ongoing on Capitol Hill covering everything from gun rights to illegal immigration to what food you can eat. This is about stealing the God-given right of self-government, which brings me back to the specific legal arguments in this lawsuit. The Judicial Watch-AEF amicus brief argues that:

• The Supreme Court should re-affirm a rational basis standard of review (the concept that a law is valid if a legislature has a legitimate interest in enacting a statute): “The law the Proposition 8 enacted bears a rational relationship to the legitimate state goal of increasing the chances that both parents will raise children they unintentionally conceive.” The brief adds, “Only by severing the meaning of marriage from procreation can the Ninth Circuit deny that Proposition 8 is rationally related to responsible procreation … If the courts can overturn laws by reimagining their purpose, the judiciary’s power over the legislative process will be enormous.”

• Democratic decision-making should be protected from the overbearing judicial power respondents prefer. “The Ninth Circuit’s decision relies on the creative argument that Proposition 8 is unlawful because it functioned to ‘take away’ a previously granted right,” the brief states. “If allowed to stand, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling would create a new ‘one-way ratchet’ rule allowing state judiciaries to grant new rights which are instantly irrevocable by the citizens of that state.”

• If proponents of Prop 8 do not have standing to defend the law in court, democratic self-governance across the nation will be threatened. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and current Governor Jerry Brown both refused to defend Proposition 8 in court, prompting proponents of the initiative to seek to intervene as defendants. The Judicial Watch-AEF brief argued, “A ruling that Proposition 8’s supporters did not have the standing to defend their law would therefore constitute a devastating blow to the people’s right to direct democracy across the country.”

In other words, if Governors Schwarzenegger or Brown had defended the people’s right to decide this issue for themselves, as provided to them by the initiative process, the people would not have had to intervene.

The brief continues by asserting that redefining marriage would have a deleterious social impact and, as a result, a rational state interest in preserving traditional marriage. Citing an assault on traditional marriage by the Bolsheviks in Russia, the brief details how “the consequences of early Bolshevik family engineering were documented as: an epidemic of divorces; economic hardship on women and children, particularly among the peasantry; an increase in “shelterless” (bezprizorni) children; and an ultimately diminished social status for women despite the feminist Bolshevik rhetoric.”

On Election Day 2008, 52% of voters in California elected to change the California State constitution to state that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The proposition predictably led to a number of lawsuits challenging its validity, which have been winding their way through the courts. In one lawsuit (Strauss v. Horton), the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, but allowed existing same-sex marriages to stand, adding to the confusion.

On August 4, 2010, District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8 violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On August 16, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the judgment stayed pending an appeal.  On February 7, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court upheld Judge Walker’s decision, but stayed the ruling preventing additional same-sex marriages from taking place until the appeals process has been exhausted. (The Ninth Circuit Court also refused to invalidate Judge Walker’s ruling on the grounds that he failed to disclose that he had been in a homosexual relationship for ten years prior to registering his ruling on Proposition 8 and, therefore, had a conflict of interest.)

What is at stake here is the very basic right of the citizens of a sovereign state to make their own laws. The Supreme Court should hold that the people of California were acting within their constitutional rights when they sought to protect marriage from being redefined by activist judges. If it fails to do so, then key aspects of self-government – including the powers of initiative and referendum — would be rendered meaningless.

Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae brief in 2011 with the Supreme Court for the State of California, supporting the right of California citizens to defend Proposition 8 in court, and an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 on behalf of the proponents of Proposition 8, urging the court to hear the case. Judicial Watch also filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Obama Justice Department to find out why the nation’s top law enforcement agency reversed course and decided to not defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Make no mistake; the institution of marriage is under attack like never before. And when the battle enters the courts, Judicial Watch will do what it can to ensure that the rule of law prevails over the personal whims of “empathic” judges and the leftist radicals who pull their strings.