Prop 8 Backers Chide Judge Vaughn Walker In Gay Marriage Appeal

BY CARLOS SANTOSCOY 
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

In urging an appeals court to overturn Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn

 Walker's ruling that stuck down California's gay marriage ban, backers 

have called the ruling “egregiously selective and one-sided.”

After conducting a 13-day trial in January, Walker last month ruled 

Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional because it violates the right of gay 

men and lesbians to equal protection and due process. It is the first time

 a federal judge has ruled on the constitutionality of state-enacted gay

 marriage ban.

In written arguments submitted Friday to the the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court

 of Appeals, lawyers for ProtectMarriage.com, the sponsors of the ban, 

chided Walker for ignoring relevant information, including “judicial 

authority, the works of eminent scholars past and present in all

 relevant

 academic fields, extensive historical and documentary evidence,

” in finding

 the law unconstitutional and basing his opinion “almost exclusively 

on an uncritical acceptance the evidence submitted by Plaintiffs' 

experts.”

He “simply ignored virtually everything … that ran counter to its

 conclusions,” lawyers wrote in their 134-page brief.

The challenge was organized and funded by the American Foundation

 for Equal Rights (AFER), which is scheduled to submit its arguments

 next month. AFER is representing a gay couple and a lesbian couple

 who have been denied the right to marry because of Proposition 8.

Attorneys for ProtectMarriage.com urged the three-judge appeals court

 to ignore the testimony presented at trial, calling it “unreliable and

 ultimately irrelevant.”

Lawyers also rejected Walker's conclusion that Prop 8 supporters

 backed the measure out of animus towards gay men and lesbians, 

calling it an attack on the “many judges and lawmakers and millions 

of Americans who rightly and reasonably understand that marriage is 

the unique union of a man and a woman.”

In a statement released Friday, Chad Griffin, president of AFER, 

defended Walker's ruling, which he said was “based on our nation's

 most fundamental principles, and that the Constitution does not permit 

unequal treatment under the law.”

“Regardless of the defendant-intervenors' protests, the fact remains that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, as was proven conclusively and 

unequivocally through a full federal trial,” Griffin said.

Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for the first week in December.