Originally Posted By: olivant
NBC News and news services updated 2 hours 1 minutes ago 2012-02-07T18:09:09

"SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has declared California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional, paving the way for a likely U.S. Supreme Court showdown on the voter-approved law, NBC News is reporting. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Tuesday that a lower court judge interpreted the U.S. Constitution correctly in 2010 when he declared the ban, known as Proposition 8, to be a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians."

I imagine the decision is destined to be reviewed en banc by the 9th and may eventually find its way to the SCOTUS.


Independent of whether one thinks gay marriage is a good thing or not, what exactly makes rules against gay marriage a federal issue? For example, the State of NY allows first cousin marriage. The state of Michigan does not. So presumably if two NY cousins moved to MI and wanted to be married they'd be out of luck. Would they then have a federal case? I want to understand why this didn't end for good or bad at the California SC.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.