A federal appeals court has ruled that California's same sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. This may mean that the issue will now be brought before the US Supreme Court. The ban called Proposition 8 received a 52 per cent vote in 2008 and the court held it to be unconstitutional as it targeted a minority group '"or no compelling reason."
The three judge panel ruled that the judge of a lower court had correctly interpreted the US Constitution when he "declared in 2010 that Proposition 8 was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians."
The ruling states "whether under the Constitution same-sex couples may ever be denied the right to marry, a right that has long been enjoyed by opposite-sex couples, is an important and highly controversial question...we need not and do not answer the broader question in this case."
The case has also raised issues of litigation funding and pro bono. The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), a non-profit organisation established in 2009 in response to the Proposition 8 gay marriage sets a different example for civil rights litigation in that half of its legal team are working on partial pay. Usually, lawyers work with established advocacy groups pro bono.
Kenneth Doran, Chairman of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, one of the firms working on the case commented "Our fee arrangement with AFER remains the same with the vast majority of our work being done on a pro bono basis. The firm and many of our lawyers have also made cash contributions to AFER."
Click here to see a piece by the Irish Times on the case.
Click here to see an article about AFER's litigation model.