California: Attorney-General argues that Proposition 8 invalid

Californian Attorney-General Jerry Brown Jr has argued in submissions to the California Supreme Court that Proposition 8 is invalid.

His argument is that the right to marry, under the Californian constitution, is an “inalienable” right which the California Supreme Court can only abridge or modify for compelling reasons when the court judges it as “fundamental”. His argument is that because the California Marriage case determined that there was no compelling reason to deny the right to same sex couples, therefore Proposition 8 was invalid.

By contrast, the former Special Prosecutor of President Clinton, Kenneth Starr, now the dean of Malibu based Pepperdine University Law School, argues that Prop 8 is valid and that it invalidates all same sex marriages entered into before it passed.

The case challenging Prop 8 is yet to be decided by the California Supreme Court.

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