A new ruling just came down in the Prop 8 same-sex marriage case, and it’s a little hard to capture in a headline. So let me explain.
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.
The upshot is that the ball is where everyone expected it to be all along, in the 9th Circuit’s court.
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.