Author: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence

I wrote yesterday why the legal theory of those opposing Proposition 8 is wrong. Joe Infranco, my esteemed colleague at ADF, explains why their legal theory does not fit the actual facts in this excellent blog post at ADF’s Church blog. 

In summary, the liberals argue that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because it “stripped away” the right to marry a same-sex partner that existed for about 4-5 months in California between the time of the ruling by the California Supreme Court finding a right to same-sex “marriage” in the state constitution in June 2008, and when the voters reversed it by passing Prop 8 in November 2008.   Joe Infranco points out that the process to collect signatures to get Prop 8 on the ballot started long before the California Supreme Court ruling, and that state officials approved Prop 8 for the ballot before the state supreme court ruled in the lawsuits challenging state marriage laws.  Also, the state supreme court voted 4-3 to stop its order from going into effect until after the voters had voted on Prop 8.  Jerry Brown, the current state attorney general and soon-to-be governor, also altered the ballot language to describe it in negative terms.  A lawsuit to change the ballot language failed. 

So at every step of the way, state officials worked to subvert Prop 8.  The facts simply don’t fit the liberals’ narrative that the supporters of Prop 8 intended to “strip rights” from homosexuals.

This post originally appeared here.