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Indybay Feature

Prop 8 Stay on Gay Marriages Lifted...with a Hitch

by SF Peninsula Reaction
Judge Vaughn Walker released his decision and will allow same-sex marriages to resume in California...but there is still a wait.
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Judge Vaughn Walker released his decision and will allow same-sex marriages to resume in California but gay couples who were planning to get married in the next few days will not be able to do so quite yet. The judge is keeping gay marriages on hold in California until at least August 18 to allow supporters of prop 8 to give arguments.

Last week Judge Walker declared the Prop 8 ban unconstitutional but at the same time he issued a temporary stay of his ruling. Prop 8 supporters hoped that stay would remain for the duration of their appeal of his ruling which could take years.

Lawyers for gay couples, California Gov. Schwarzenegger, and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed legal motions after Walker struck down California's voter-approved gay marriage ban as unconstitutional. Their motions asked that same-sex marriages be allowed to resume immediately.

Up and down the San Francisco peninsula the news spread quickly as activists for marriage equality hear the news. Opponents of prop 8 include gay activists and their straight allies. Ruth Robertson, a member of the Raging Grannies said, "I choose to fight for others who want to be able to marry because I value my own marriage. I'm happy that prop 8 was overturned and the stay was lifted, even with this one glitch. We are hopeful that it will be permanently lifted and the marriages of many waiting couples in California will be able to resume."

The Raging Grannies joined other marriage equality activists in celebration last week when Proposition 8 was overturned.
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it's about allowing decision on lifting stay to be appealed to 9th circuit by pro-prop8/pro-stay bigots...


First the background: When the federal judge in California declared the Prop 8 ban unconstitutional, he also issued a temporary stay of his ruling. Opponents of same-sex marriage wanted him to extend that stay for the duration of their appeal of his ruling; supporters of same-sex marriage wanted him to deny the opponents' request and also lift his temporary stay.

The judge just ruled on these competing requests. He found no reason to stay his original decision while it is appealed, so he denied opponents' request. But, being a lowly district judge, he realized he's not going to have the final say on this matter anyway. So he extended his temporary stay until next week to give opponents time to appeal his denial of the stay to the 9th Circuit.
by Mike Novack
Then the appeals court can decide if they want to stay the decision while they handle the appeal. In other words, he's giving the people who want to appeal a week to convince an appeals court judge to grant a stay while his or her panel hears the case. They are supposed to have reasons for granting the stay like "expect their full court will agree to take up the case" and "expect there is a decent chance of the appeal succeeding" and "somebody would have been damaged in the mean time". But there isn't really a way to second guess on this.
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