Washington, DC – On news today that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that California’s Proposition 8, which limits marriage to heterosexual couples in the state, is unconstitutional, Constitutional Accountability Center released the following statement.

CAC President Doug Kendall said, “In its opinion today, the appeals court affirmed that the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause applies to all ‘persons’ in this country and forbids the government from stripping rights away from any group of persons based on prejudice. That is a victory not only for gay men and lesbians who want to marry, but also for every American who values our Constitution’s guarantee of equality.”

CAC Civil Rights Director David Gans added, “‘We the People’ took the principle of equality in the Declaration of Independence and perfected it in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Contrary to the flawed views of those such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Ninth Circuit panel majority today showed that conservative advocate Ted Olson’s view of the broad sweep of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equality is the right one.”

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Resources:

Constitutional Accountability Center’s “friend of the court” brief in Perry v. Brown: https://www.theusconstitution.org/cases/perry-v-brown

CAC’s analysis of the December 2010 oral argument in Perry : https://www.theusconstitution.org/text-history/2411

Perfecting the Declaration: The Text and History of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, David Gans, November 2011: https://www.theusconstitution.org/media/releases/new-study-shows-why-justice-scalia-wrong-%E2%80%93-and-ted-olson-right-%E2%80%93-constitutional

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

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