and the law does sometimes make for strange bedfellows:
Bush vs. Gore rivals challenge Prop. 8 in federal courtTwo prominent attorneys who argued on opposite sides of Bush vs. Gore, the legal battle over the 2000 presidential election, announced Tuesday that they will challenge Proposition 8 in federal court and seek to restore gay marriage until the case is decided.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who represented then-Vice President Al Gore in the contested election, have joined forces to tackle the same-sex marriage issue, which has deeply divided Californians and left 18,000 gay couples married last year in legal isolation.
In a project of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, Olson and Boies have united to represent two same-sex couples filing suit after being denied marriage licenses because of Proposition 8. Their suit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in California, calls for an injunction against the proposition, allowing immediate reinstatement of marriage rights for same-sex couples.
The California Supreme Court ruled in May 2008 that state law prohibiting same-sex marriage was unconstitutional under the privacy, due process and equal protection guarantees of the California Constitution.
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Legal scholars have observed that proponents of gay marriage have avoided taking the issue to federal court so far because of the dominance of conservative judges and justices on the federal bench after the eight-year tenure of President George W. Bush.
The U.S. Supreme Court has what usually results in a 5-4 majority against extending rights to gays by recognizing sexual orientation as a vulnerable class of citizens in need of protection.
More:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/bush-v-gore-rivals-challenge-prop-8-in-federal-court.html-----
For the record, my choice of approaches on the broader issue(s) has long been- as in 15-20 years long been, to utilize the growing and increasingly incontrovertable science that demonstrates an "immutable characteristic" as set out in the Civil Rights Act- and find a case of discrimination with "bad facts" that would otherwise fall under its auspices.
That has nothing to do with Lamda or others who work hard in the legal trenches- and have their own strategies. And indeed, the old Brandeis Brief deal has been criticized more than once:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patricia-nell-warren/civil-rights-for-gays-doe_b_148587.htmlMy thoughts were (and are) that in doing so- fraught as it is with ambiguity around the edges, the science can (and does) cut right through the sophistry to the chase.
So- now that there's a challenge on the Constitutional level it'll be interesting to read what Bois & Olsen's team comes up with.
Might be kind of risky to go for the jugular at this point.
But the die is cast and I guess that we shall see.