My wonderful cousin Kelly dropped me a note on Facebook today:
Bill,
I’m so sorry about Proposition 8.
What will this mean for you and Ron?
-Kelly
I had to say that I don’t know, but that it would probably have to be settled in the courts.
Seems like I read somewhere that existing marriages wouldn’t be invalidated by Prop 8, but I can’t remember who or what their reasoning was. I’ll have to look in the archives of Towleroad and some other places.
UPDATE: According to this story in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jerry Brown, California’s attorney general, believes that Prop 8 would not invalidate existing marriages, according to a court filing made on August 4.
“I believe that marriages that have been entered into subsequent to the (May 15) Supreme Court opinion will be recognized by the California Supreme Court,” Brown told The Chronicle. Noting that Prop. 8 is silent about retroactivity, he said, “I would think the court, in looking at the underlying equities, would most probably conclude that upholding the marriages performed in that interval (before the election) would be a just result.”
Needless to say, proponents of the measure disagree.
The measure does not state explicitly that it would nullify same-sex marriages performed before Nov. 4. But in their ballot arguments, supporters of Prop. 8 declare it would invalidate all such marriages “regardless of when or where performed” – an interpretation that would apply to existing as well as future marriages.
My money’s on Jerry Brown. But not a lot of it.
