Calif. same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional

By Robert Barnes, Updated: Tuesday, February 7, 12:58 PM

A federal appeals panel in San Francisco ... Tuesday ... 2 to 1 ... overturned the proposition, which ... in 2008 ... amended the state’s Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman.

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt. “The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort.” ...

... Judge N. Randy Smith, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, dissented ...

“By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the people of California violated the Equal Protection Clause” of the federal Constitution, Reinhardt wrote ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/calif-same-sex-marriage-ban-ruled-unconstitutional/2012/02/07/gIQAMNwkwQ_story.html?hpid=z1&wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics