Prop 8 day at Supreme Court

WILLIAM A. JACOBSON MAR 26, 2013 9:40 AM

Today at 10 a.m. is the argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry, also known as the California Proposition 8 case.  Tomorrow is argument in the Defense of Marriage Act case.

It’s hard to believe that this day has arrived.  We have been covering Prop 8 almost since the beginning of this blog.  The early posts were about the boycott movement:

• November 14, 2008 — Will Law Professors Boycott The Inauguration?
• December 4, 2008 — It’s Time To Speak Out Against The “Mormon Boycott”
• December 11, 2008 — Day Without A Gay — A Bad Idea Ends Badly

Boycotts and secondary boycotts continued to be a key part of the campaign in an attempt to delegitimize support for retaining the historical definition of marriage:

• November 10, 2009 — Gay Activists Launch Boycott of Dems
• November 23, 2010 — SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage
• April 25, 2011 — King & Spalding Says Yes to Gitmo Detainees, No to Congress (DOMA)
• April 26, 2011 — Is There Now A Hostile Environment For Pro-Traditional Marriage Views At King & Spalding?
• July 21, 2012 — When political correctness runs amok, it will look like the Mayor of Boston
• July 25, 2012 — Now Chicago Alderman seeks to ban Chick-fil-A
• July 29, 2012 — Most important legacy of Obama’s gay marriage switch was freeing Dems to play the “bigot card”

But most of our coverage centered on the court cases at the state and then federal level:

• May 26, 2009 — Split Decision on Prop. 8 (California Supreme Court upholds Prop 8)
• May 26, 2009 — Federal Challenge to Prop. 8
• August 4, 2010 — Fed Judge Finds Calif. Prop. 8 Unconstitutional
• November 17, 2011 — California Sup. Ct.:  Prop 8 defenders have standing to defend marriage law
• February 7, 2012 — 9th Circuit holds Prop. 8 violates 14th Amendment

In the run-up to today’s argument, the Transparent ref gaming of Sup Ct on gay marriage has gone into hyper-drive, with Democratic politicians jockeying for position on the issue and the media declaring, much as it did with Obamacare, that the Supreme Court will be damaged if it is on “the wrong side of history.”  The irony is that the demand that the Supreme Court bow to the emerging popular will is used as a reason why the Supreme Court should not allow the popular will (i.e., voters) to have a say.

The framework of today’s case is at SCOTUSblog. There is no live audio (it will be released later today).  Here’s a live Twitter feed:

[Twitter feed removed]

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