Breaking news out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: a
three-judge panel has ruled California's controversial Proposition 8
unconstitutional. The most interesting aspect of the decision
is the court's rejection of Proposition 8 as unconstitutional
under rational basis review, the lowest standard of constitutional
scrutiny: "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." That is a benchslap of somewhat epic
proportions.
It is possible that review under the highest level of review,
strict scrutiny, may have been appropriate here--the U.S. Supreme
Court indicated that legislation regulating marriage and
procreation "involves one of the basic civil rights of
man" in Skinner v. State of Okl, ex rel. Williamson,
316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). No matter, though, as a law
