[Ginny LaRoe]
Proposition 8 supporters kicked off their appellate fight to preserve California's gay-marriage ban Friday night with a 31,000-word opening brief.
They were up against a midnight deadline to get the brief to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which is now set to review the August district court decision that rendered the ban unconstitutional.
As expected, proponents made their case for standing and level wide-ranging arguments for upholding the ban, taking particular aim at Walker's finding that Prop 8 failed to meet rational basis review. The decision "defames as anti-gay
bigots not only seven million California voters, but everyone else in this Country, and elsewhere, who believes that the traditional opposite-sex definition of marriage continues to meaningfully serve society’s interests," including "the current President of the United States," says the brief, signed by Charles Cooper.
The brief further argues that Walker's fact finding was unreliable and irrelevant, and that the ruling is contrary to binding precedent and flies in the face of uniform judgment of state and federal appellate courts across the country.
A response is due in a month, and oral arguments are set for December.
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