Move over financial crisis, there’s something bigger in the media hot seat today. Prop 8 has created quite a controversy and as we speak, the California Supreme Court is deciding the validity of the proposition eliminating same-sex marriage. It began in May when the court finally allowed all of us to have equal rights regarding marriage. However, putting it up for question on the November ballot was a slap in the face.

Kate Kendell, executive director of San Francisco’s National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represents several same-sex couples in cases now before the court — many who have married already — said the court realizes that the cases raise landmark issues.

“Prop 8 strikes at the very core of why those justices wear black robes and sit on the bench,” she said. “If Prop 8 is allowed to stand, they may as well be potted plants in terms of how severely the court’s role as an interpreter and guardian of the constitution will be hampered.”

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Prop 8 controversy continues…After California’s state constitutional ban on gay marriage shockingly passed on November 4 by a 52.3% to 47.7% vote, many groups of people are in an uproar. Protesters are flocking the streets and lawyers are getting involved. Filing court briefs on Monday in support of a petition seeking to overturn Proposition 8, the petition was filed on behalf of six same-sex couples by Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, and Gregory D. Phillips, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson.

On behalf of 44 state legislators, one brief filed by a team of LA-based lawyers, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, argued that Prop 8 “constitutes a change in the constitution that discriminates against a minority group–something that requires a two-thirds vote of the legislators, not a simple majority vote.

According to a brief written by Ethan Dettmer, a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson Dunn, Proposition 8, which defines marriage between a man and a woman, “purports to strike at the heart of” the equal protection guarantee and should be invalidated because it was enacted as an amendment, not a revision.

Popularity: 3% [?]