- Chad Griffin
CALIFORNIA – The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has declined to lift its stay on an order overturning California’s same-sex marriage ban.
The court was asked to allow gay marriages to take place while legal processes continue but did not grant the request from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER).
The court is currently considering an August 2010 judgment which ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
It says it will not make a decision until the state Supreme Court rules on whether gay marriage opponents have the legal standing to appeal the original judgment.
In a terse denial of the latest effort to restore the right of gays and lesbians to marry, 9th Circuit Judges Stephen Reinhardt, Michael Daly Hawkins and N. Randy Smith said they had reviewed the cases cited by the gay-rights advocates, but decided to maintain the injunction against Walker’s ruling.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights, a party to the effort to resume gay-marriage rights pending the appeal, described the denial of that fundamental right “un-American.”
“It is decidedly unjust and unreasonable to expect California’s gay and lesbian couples to put their lives on hold and suffer daily discrimination as second-class citizens while their U.S. District Court victory comes to its final conclusion,” said AFER co-founder and president Chad Griffin.
