Associate Dean Amar Comments on Prop 8 for LA Times, SNR, Sirius Radio
Associate Dean Vikram Amar commented on the federal court challenge to California's Proposition 8 for articles in the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento News & Review, and was interviewed on the subject by Sirius radio last week. The case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, challenges Prop. 8's ban on same-sex marriage and will likely set the stage for a Supreme Court ruling on the issue.
Prop. 8, passed by voters in November 2008, changed the state constitution to define marriage as between only a man and woman, and the California Supreme Court last year upheld the initiative, prompting two same-sex couples to file a federal equal-protection challenge to the measure in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
Associate Dean Amar told the Los Angeles Times that lawyers for the plaintiffs have put together a strong evidentiary foundation for judges who were inclined to rule for same-sex marriage to do so, but added that "it is not an analysis that is going to convince anybody who is not already leaning your way," and that "there didn't seem to be compelling evidence that the only people who could have voted for this are people who hate gays."
Associate Dean Amar told the SNR that "No intelligent person thinks that voters will fail to support gay marriage in the next generation," but said that the U.S. Supreme Court as it is currently constituted would be unlikely to support a decision overturning Prop. 8. The current case is "about posterity," as it is likely to be one of a series of court decisions made over a period of time as the social consensus regarding same-sex marriage changes, he suggested.
Vikram Amar, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law with the UC Davis School of Law, is a national authority in the fields of constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal procedure, and remedies. His biweekly column for FindLaw.com, a leading provider of online legal information, centers on his expertise in constitutional law.
Sacramento News & Review article