Gay marriage: The Prop. 8 decision

In a "Solomonic decision," said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air, California's Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Proposition 8, reversing the same court’s earlier declaration of gays' right to marry. “The court split the baby, figuratively speaking,” by letting stand 18,000 same-sex marriages conducted before voters approved Prop. 8. The court did the right thing—the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage passed fair and square, but that’s no reason to dissolve marriages conducted before it became law.

Leaving 18,000 gay marriages on the books assures that the Supreme Court will have to revisit the issue, said John Arovosis in AmericaBlog. The fact that those marriages can exist without destroying society “will call into question, if not outright destroy, the bigots' argument for why the state has an interest in banning gays from getting married.”

“Politically,” the court's Prop. 8 decision was perfect, said Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic. “It would have been dreadful if voters were retroactively told their valid vote was somehow null and void,” and “equally dreadful if those couples lawfully wed were subsequently forced into divorce by the court.” Now these couples and their families will become the focus of the debate, “as they should be.”

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