Santa Clara County announced that it will join San Francisco and Los Angeles in a petition to the Supreme Court of the State of California to stop state officials to refrain from implementing, enforcing or applying state Proposition 8, the California Marriage Protection Act.
Fifty-two percent of California voters were in favor of the measure, which limits marriage to being between a man and a woman and effectively prevents same-sex marriage. The three government entities are filing a suit to preempt the proposition from taking effect, as all votes have not yet been counted.
"One of the great traditions of our country is that the Constitution guarantees individuals equal protection under the law," said County of Santa Clara County Counsel Ann Ravel. "Constitutional rights cannot be taken away by either a majority vote on an initiative or by a vote of the legislature."
Proposition 8 seeks to alter Article I of the California Constitution by adding, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
The entities' petition asserts that the California Constitution does not allow a bare majority of voters to divest a minority group of rights conferred by the equal protection clause. The 1911 Amendment to the California Constitution creating the initiative process provides that, while initiatives can amend the Constitution to help further its purpose, initiatives cannot be used to revise its basic structure, which includes the notion of equality. Thus, the government's argue, Proposition 8 is not a valid constitutional amendment.
On May 15, the California Supreme Court issued an opinion that the portions of the Family Code that limited marriage to a man and a woman violated the rights of gay and lesbian individuals and couples to equal protection, privacy and due process under the California Constitution. The Court concluded that gay and lesbian couples have a fundamental right to marry to the same extent as heterosexual couples.
"The full rays of equality finally shone down on thousands of gay and lesbian couples when the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriages were legal," said County of Santa Clara Supervisor Ken Yeager. "I hope the Court recognizes that the state constitution's equal protection clause cannot be set aside so capriciously. If discrimination can be written into the constitution, then the rights of any group can be easily taken away."
The officials named in the lawsuit - the State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Deputy Director of Health Information & Strategic Planning and the Attorney General - have responsibility for providing instruction to and supervising local registrars; prescribing and furnishing vital statistics forms, including marriage license forms, for use by local registrars; and arranging and preserving all registered vital statistics licenses, including marriage licenses, in a comprehensive state index and uniformly enforcing state laws. They are only being sued in their official capacity. The petitioners are asking the State Supreme Court for immediate action.
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