Suit to overturn gay-marriage ban on fast track

contra costa times

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge moved Thursday to fast-track a lawsuit that seeks to overturn Proposition 8 and let California’s same-sex marriages resume.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker agreed to let Proposition 8’s proponents intervene in the case to defend the measure, as state Attorney General Jerry Brown has already said he believes the measure is unconstitutional.

Walker, toward the end of a 50-minute hearing in a packed courtroom, ordered the parties to file by Aug. 7 joint or separate case-management proposals laying out the facts that they agree are already settled, the facts that still need to be tried and a road map on how best to proceed. The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19.

As he had tentatively ordered Tuesday, the judge declined to grant a preliminary injunction halting Prop. 8’s enforcement until a final decision is made. Doing so, he said, would create too much uncertainty and confusion.

Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, representing the plaintiffs, said he respects that ruling, but his clients — same-sex couples, one from Berkeley and another from Burbank — would prefer that uncertainty to the certainty of having their basic constitutional rights denied every day until the case is resolved.

Attorney Chuck Cooper, representing Prop. 8’s proponents, said the plaintiffs are trying to redefine, not enforce, a basic constitutional right.

Walker made it clear he knows this case could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This case is only touching down in this court ... and this is only a prelude to what’s going to happen later,” the judge said, adding he and the attorneys must strive to make as complete a factual record as possible for the higher courts to review.

The two same-sex couples who sued in May were both denied marriage licenses after 52.3 percent of voters approved Prop. 8 last November to amend the California Constitution to specify that “Only marriage between a man and woman is valid or recognized in California.”