Breaking: Court rules California amendment defending marriage is ‘unconstitutional’
Image via Wikipedia SAN FRANCISO , CA, February 7, 2012, ( LifeSiteNews.com ) – This morning, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled by a 2-1 vote that a California constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is unconstitutional . In an 89-page ruling that cited William Shakespeare and Marilyn Monroe , Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote , “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.” In 2008, California voters approved the state constitutional amendment defending marriage by a margin of 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent . U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker , who is in a long-term homosexual relationship, ruled in August 2010 that the measure “both unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an