Too Soon?

When David Boies and Theodore Olson teamed up to challenge California's Proposition 8 in federal court last May, the consensus among the national gay rights leadership was that their lawsuit came too soon, risking a major set-back for the marriage equality movement by prompting a broad, unfavorable decision in the U.S. Supreme Court. Boies and Olson, who represented opposite sides in Bush v. Gore in 2000, claim in their suit on behalf of two couples that California violated the U.S. Constitution by passing Proposition 8, which overrode the state Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex marriages. However, when Judge Vaughn Walker, chief judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, denied the defense's motion to dismiss the lawsuit two weeks ago, the prospects for marriage equality proponents began to look a little brighter. The New York Times explores whether the conditions are favorable to establish a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

On a related note, The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Judge Walker has ruled that the sponsors of Proposition 8 may withhold campaign strategy documents from gay-rights groups that are looking for evidence of anti-gay bias.