On Wednesday afternoon I was standing at the liberty pole, waiting to rally in either celebration or disappointment of Judge Walker’s decision. As organizers passed out chant lists and tested microphones, a chime of text messages erupted through the crowd…followed by a collective applause— the decisions was made, and Prop 8 had been struck down.

In case you’ve been living under a rock I’ll give you a brief history. First the California Supreme Court decided that same-sex marriage bans violated the State Constitution. Then, for the next few months a bunch of Californian queers ran to the chapels and got hitched—until…

The religious right, led by Maggie Gallagher, got together a petition and made a voters initiative on whether there would or would not be marriage equality in the State of California. This initiative, known as Proposition 8, is an example of a majority recieving the power to take away the rights of a minority.

The case was once again brought before the California Supreme Court, where the Justices decided that they should uphold the Prop 8 decision to take away the rights of thousands of State citizens. However, it was also decided that all the same-sex marriages, which happened during the few short months when marriage equality was legal, would continue to be recognized by the State of California.

Then all the queers got together and were like "Yo! We’re not gunna stand for this! Gimme My Rights!" and so the case was appealed and brought before Judge Vaughn Walker, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. During this trial the queers brought in 18 witnesses, mostly academic experts in fields ranging from religion, to political science, to sociology. The religious right brought in only two witnesses and their claim was basically:

"Gays and lesbians do not have intimate relationships similar to heterosexual couples; gays and lesbians are not as good as heterosexuals; and gay and lesbian relationships do not deserve the full recognition of society." (Paraphrased: "we’re a bunch of homophobic bigots.")

Finally, on August 4, 2010, more than two years after all of this started, Judge Walker released his decision. He struck down Prop 8 as a violation of due process and a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment. And here are some of the things he had to say about it:

"When challenged, however, the voters’ determination must find at least some support in evidence … Conjecture, speculation and fears are not enough"

"Proposition 8 singles out gays and lesbians and legitimates their unequal treatment,"

"Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,"

It is important to remember that this is not the end of the road for Prop 8. The Religious Right has already filed for appeal on Judge Walker’s decision. So the case will now go to the federal appeals court and then finally it will most likely end up in the US Supreme Court. So we’ve got a long road ahead of us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate our latest victory.

(I’m not completely sure what this means in terms of legal precedent, but it should at least give queer Maine a little more ammo for appealing Question One.)