In what was likely the last hearing before a ruling is delivered on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday appeared unconvinced that a previous ruling on the ban be tossed because the judge was in a longterm same-sex relationship.
Before the issue of whether former Chief District Judge Vaughn Walker should have recused himself from the 2010 case where he ruled Prop. 8 unconstitutional, the Ninth Circuit dealt with the release of videotapes of that trial. Prop. 8 proponents have been fighting for years to keep the tapes unavailable to the public, while gay rights advocates want the public to see them. Both David Thompson, arguing for the Prop. 8 proponents, and Ted Olson, arguing against Prop. 8 for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, were grilled by Ninth Circuit judges. Thompson made the case that witnesses would be harassed and intimidated should the tapes be made public; judges didn’t seem convinced. Nontheless, they argued with Olson over whether tapes of the trial were necessary when transcripts were available.
Moving to the issue of Walker, it seemed the Prop. 8 proponents had a much bigger mountain to climb. Lawyer Charles Cooper tried to convince the judges that Walker had a stake in the Prop. 8 case, since he was in a longterm gay relationship. The judges questioned whether it was clear Walker wanted to marry, since he didn’t during the brief period when same-sex marriage was legal in California.
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