CA gay marriage decision stayed pending appeal

this is pretty basic Article III stuff.  Federal courts don’t decide issues just because someone thinks they should be decided.  They only decide cases when the parties are personally affected in a legally cognizable way.  It’s not just ’cause they don’t feel like it – it’s in the Constitution.

The court didn’t just decide to overturn Prop 8. There were plaintiffs who sued to get married, and there were defendants (Swartzenegger and Brown et al) who were going to let the lawsuit default. The Prop 8 “Proponents” (neither plaintiff nor defendants) asked to be allowed to defend because the it was going to default otherwise, and the judge let them defend.

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p>THEY LOST. IN FACT, THEY BLEW IT OUT THEIR COLLECTIVE ARSES. Unfortunately for the “proponents”, they did such a lousy, pathetic, laughably simplistic defense that they lost on every single finding of fact.

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p>The judge ruled that Prop 8 is unconstitutional after 13 days of testimony from plaintiffs, “Proponents” and “so called” experts. The “Proponents” tried to appeal (making them “Appellants”, not “Plaintiffs” as you claimed), after severely screwing up the first case, and now they have until December to prove that they have standing to appeal under Article III of the US Constitution.

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p>This isn’t a case of someone bringing a new lawsuit AFTER the judge ruled Prop 8 unconstitution. This is the bumbling idiots (i.e. Larry, Moe and Curly for the defense), who are appealing the judgement after doing such a pathetically bad job of the first case.

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p>The fact that you don’t accept the terms of Article III of the US Constitution governing standing, simply because you did not get your way, does not surprise me in the least. I remember your pathetic defense of keeping petitions confidential, and you did not care about the constitution then either.

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p>Seriously, read the decision before putting forward your pathetic propaganda, because you have been demonstratably wrong on each and every point, at least so far.

… if they can demonstrate, as you say, “harm”.  One can argue for posterity on their own time, not the courts.  The alternative is to open up posterity argument to every crackpot with nothing better to do.

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p>More at Right Wing Watch:

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…the issue standing is going to be an important question in moving the case forward in the appeals process:

[A]dvocates of Prop 8, who are launching the appeal, may not have the necessary standing to carry it forward. The case is titled Perry v. Schwarzenegger, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other officials in the position of defending the ballot initiative. But those officials, who are sympathetic toward gay marriage to varying degrees, are not inclined to appeal Walker’s ruling.

Under Supreme Court precedent, it’s unclear that proponents of legislation would have standing to defend it if state officials are not themselves defending it, because they can’t show that they are suffering the necessary injury. In Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, a 1997 case, the Court expressed “grave doubts” about the ability of such groups to challenge rulings that strike down ballot initiatives.

“There is a very serious standing issue,” said George Washington University Law School associate dean Alan Morrison, a longtime expert on standing and civil procedure. The Arizona precedent, he said, “came right up to the edge” of saying there was no standing for groups like those that favor Proposition 8. Morrison also noted that since that ruling, new members like Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Samuel Alito Jr. have joined the Court and are “no friends of expanding standing.” Setting high standards for standing has been one of several gatekeeping procedural doctrines conservative justices have used to weed out what they view as excessive or frivolous litigation from the courts.

The issue of standing is the very question the Ninth Circuit is going to be examining and why the court is explicitly telling Prop 8 supporters who are appealing Walker’s ruling “to include in their opening brief a discussion of why this appeal should not be dismissed for lack of Article III standing.”

My other point was that you seemed to be complaining about an expansion of judicial power, then propose a new theory of judicial review which will expand judicial power.