Reuters: U.S.: Gay marriage foes ask Supreme Court to uphold California ban

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Gay marriage foes ask Supreme Court to uphold California ban Jul 31st 2012, 20:26 By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES | Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:26pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gay marriage opponents asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to uphold a California ban on same-sex matrimony that was struck down by a lower court as a violation of the Constitution. The petition from supporters of Proposition 8, the voter-approved state constitutional amendment defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, moves the politically charged case one step closer to a potential high-court review in the weeks before November's U.S. presidential election. President Barack Obama turned gay marriage into a 2012 campaign issue in May when he came out in support of the right of same-sex couples to wed. His Republican opponent, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, disagrees. The Supreme Court could agree to hear the matter in its next session, which begins in October, putting the court on track to decide the case within a year. The high court could otherwise refuse to hear the case, thus nullifying the Prop 8 ban but leaving unresolved the broader question of whether similar prohibitions on same-sex marriage in other states would survive a constitutional challenge. California, the most populous state, joined the vast majority of U.S. states in outlawing same-sex marriage in 2008 when voters passed Prop 8, overriding a state Supreme Court decision six months earlier that briefly legalized gay marriage. The state high court, however, later ruled that 18,000 same-sex weddings officiated between May and November of 2008 would remain legal. Gay rights advocates subsequently brought suit against Prop 8, and a San Francisco-based federal judge struck down the measure in 2010 in a decision that was upheld in February by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court declined to reconsider the matter in June. However, the California measure restricting marriage to heterosexual couples remains in effect until the legal challenge to Prop 8 runs its course, barring further weddings between gay men and lesbians in the state in the meantime. (Writing and reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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