Those are the words of Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, in his ruling overturning California's anti-same-sex marriage Proposition 8. The court found that the sole purpose and effect of Proposition 8 was
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.This is not a legitimate purpose for passing a law, even in America, and so Proposition 8 has been declared unconstitutional.
But the fight's not over. The ruling will of course be appealed to the US Supreme Court, which has been stacked with conservatives by Bush. The question is whether they will uphold American values, or contort themselves to find some way of reading "except for gays" into the 14th Amendment in order to uphold bigotry.
The 9th Circuit's full ruling is available here.
