The legal battle over same-sex marriage is far from over. Last year, the leaders of major gay rights organizations issued a plea urging people not to make Prop 8 a federal issue. The national and state leaders of these organizations listed their reasons for issuing the plea — the battle must we waged within the states.

A federal judge declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that no legitimate state interest justified treating gay and lesbian couples differently from others and that “moral disapproval” was not enough to save the voter-passed Proposition 8. The California Supreme Court ruled 4 to 3 that gays and lesbians were entitled to marry under the state Constitution in a historic ruling in May 2008. Voters passed Proposition 8 six months later, amending the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

California gay marriage decision announced today. The decision will be posted online between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., Pacific time, and will be written by Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker. Walker, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, heard myriad witnesses testify about the history of marriage, the nature of homosexuality and the degree of power gays and lesbians possess in the political system.

Although a majority of California voters say they support same-sex marriage, that endorsement is as tenuous as it was two years ago when voters told pollsters that they approved of the idea but still voted to ban the marriages.

The Mormon Church has agreed to pay a $5,539.00 fine to the state of California for failing to file the proper paperwork during an anti-gay fight two years ago. Prop. 8, which restricted the definition of marriage couples to straight couples, effectively overturned the California Supreme Court’s ruling that gay couples should be allowed to marry.

A gay group challenging California’s gay marriage ban failed yesterday to qualify for the 2010 ballot, leaving gay activists mulling a 2012 push and hoping a federal court will overturn the measure before then. Restore Equality 2010 says it fell short of the 695,000 signatures needed by today’s deadline to put the measure on the ballot.

Gordon Dennis Fox has the distention of being the first openly gay speaker of a state lower house, although Assemblyman John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) was elected to the speakership of the California Assembly several weeks before Fox (Pérez, however, will not be sworn in as speaker until March 1).
Members of the State of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations House of Representatives elected Fox to succeed William J. Murphy in a day of pomp and speechifying, capping months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

Stanford University Professor Gary Segura, a national political scientist testifying on behalf of supporters of same-sex marriage said Wednesday that gays and lesbians have little political power and can’t count on most of their friends in high places, including Governor’s or U.S. President Obama. “Gays and lesbians do not possess a meaningful degree of political power. They are not able to protect their essential interests,” said Segura, who heads the university’s Chicano studies program and co-directs its Center on American Democracy.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision last week, with conservatives in the majority, intervened in the San Francisco district court trial on behalf of the defenders of Proposition 8. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its opinion, decided that they — not homosexuals — faced a hostile public climate of harassment and intimidation. Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states.