SAN FRANCISCO — Gay couples who had been gearing up to get married in
California this week had to put their wedding plans on hold once again
after a federal appeals court said it first wanted to consider the
constitutionality of the state's same-sex marriage ban.
A
three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals imposed an
emergency stay Monday on a trial court judge's ruling overturning the
ban, known as Proposition 8. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn
Walker had ordered state officials to stop enforcing the measure
starting Wednesday, clearing the way for county clerks to issue marriage
licenses to same-sex couples.
"It's saddening just to know that
we still have to keep waiting for this basic human right," Marcia
Davalos, of Los Angeles, a health care advocate who had planned to marry
her partner, Laurette Healey, said when the stay was issued Monday. "We
were getting excited and then all of a sudden it's like, 'Ugh.' It's a
roller-coaster."
Lawyers for the two gay couples who challenged
the ban said Monday they would not appeal the panel's decision on the
stay to the U.S. Supreme Court. They said they were satisfied the
appeals court had agreed to fast-track its consideration of the
Proposition 8 case by scheduling oral arguments for the week of Dec. 6.
"Today's
order from the 9th Circuit for an expedited hearing schedule ensures
that we will triumph over Prop. 8 as quickly as possible," said Chad
Griffin, president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, a group
funding the effort to get the voter-approved gay marriage ban
permanently overturned. "Our attorneys are ready to take this case all
the way through the appeals court and to the United States Supreme
Court."
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