Supreme Court Same Sex Marriage Ruling Could Impact California Law

Any day now, the United States Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling on same sex marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Legal experts told NBC Bay Area that they strongly believe the Supreme Court will deem state bans on same sex marriage unconstitutional

“It’s very difficult often to predict what the Supreme Court will do, but this is not a difficult situation,” said Jesse Choper, the Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Choper says that the Supreme Court has given several indications it’s going to find gay marriage “constitutionally protected” and even legalize it throughout the land.

But many Californians are wondering what will happen here in this state should the court rule in favor of bans in other states.

Will a federal ruling that the right to marry for same sex couples is not protected by the constitution bring back Proposition 8?

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage bans, Choper says it will be up to California itself to decide what is and is not state law. That could mean that the issue of Proposition 8 finds its way back to the Supreme Court of California, he added.

“My guess is they’ll say … [Proposition 8] is the law of California, and there will be no gay marriage in California unless you change, you the people of the state or the state legislature, change the law,” Choper said.

The battle over the right to marry for same sex couples has a storied history in California, particularly the Bay Area.

Proposition 8 is the controversial ballot measure passed by voters in 2008 which made same sex marriage illegal in the state.

The law was later deemed unconstitutional by Judge Vaughn Walker of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and in 2013 made its way before the U.S. Supreme Court. However, at that time the justices declined to rule on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and dismissed the case for lack of standing.

Two years later, the Supreme Court is taking the issue of state bans head on, and Californians wait with bated breath for the ruling.

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