Justice Kennedy denies petition to stop gay ‘marriages’

The author of the Supreme Court's DOMA decision, which stated that advocates of traditional marriage are motivated by bigotry, has denied a petition to prevent California from resuming same-sex “marriages.”

The high court released a statement yesterday stating tersely, "Justice [Anthony] Kennedy denied the application on his own, without further comment."

Justice Anthony Kennedy dismissed the emergency motion.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) issued the emergency motion Saturday on behalf of the California residents who attempted to protect Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Among these is Dennis Hollingsworth of Hollingsworth v. Perry.

The Supreme Court ruled that the people of California lacked standing to defend the case in federal court after Judge Vaughn Walker ruled the constitutional amendment unconstitutional shortly after its passage in November 2008.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered a stay on state officials who wished to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples pending full resolution of the Supreme Court case. On Friday, it removed its stay.

But Austin R. Nimocks, senior counsel at ADF, argued the appeals court lacked jurisdiction and had violated its own stay order. The court should have waited to receive a certified copy of the judgment, which justices had not yet issued, before allowing gay “marriages” to resume statewide, his petition argued.

“The 9th Circuit has failed to abide by its own word that the stay would remain in place until final disposition by the Supreme Court,” Nimocks said. “When courts act contrary to their own statements, the public’s confidence in the justice system is undermined.”

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He called the appeals court's actions “the latest in a long line of judicial irregularities that have unfairly thwarted Petitioners' defense of California's marriage amendment.”

Final disposition of the case would not come until late July.

“The more than 7 million Californians that voted to enact Proposition 8 deserve nothing short of the full respect and due process our judicial system provides,” Nimocks said.

A number of legal scholars have questioned whether the decision stands, as it amounts to a default judgment, with then-Attorney General Jerry Brown refusing to defend the duly passed law. Others saythe California State Constitution may require an appellate court to rule the proposition unconstitutional before such licenses could be licitly issued.

While visiting Senegal last week, Barack Obama called the Supreme Court's decisions on same-sex “marriage” a “victory for American democracy.”