California Attorney General Jerry Brown
is urging a federal appeals court to allow the resumption of gay
marriages in the state, the AP reported.
Brown, who is the Democratic nominee
for governor, filed paperwork Friday with the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals after Proposition 8 proponents moved to block gay marriages
from resuming as they appealed a district court's decision striking
down the measure as unconstitutional.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker
put his decision on hold until Wednesday, August 18 at 5PM, at which
time gay marriages would resume in the state unless the appeals court
acts.
In his filing, Brown said the state
would suffer no harm by having Proposition 8 lifted.
The coalition of conservative groups
that defended the law after state officials, including Brown and
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, refused to do so asked the court to
block the marriages to “avoid the confusion and irreparable injury
that would flow from the creation of a class of purposed same-sex
marriages.”
Lawyers for the plaintiffs – two gay
couples suing for the right to marry in California – said a
permanent stay of the order would harm his clients.
“Indeed, the only harm at issue here
is that suffered by Plaintiffs and other gay and lesbian Californians
each day that Proposition 8's discriminatory and irrational
deprivation of their constitutional rights remains in force,” the
lawyers argued.
Walker has expressed doubts over
whether Protect Marriage, the sponsor of the 2008 measure, has legal
standing to appeal the case because they are not the named
defendants. The lawsuit lists Schwarzenegger and Brown as
defendants, but both officials refused to defend the law and have
said they would not appeal.
Voters approved Proposition 8 five
months after the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.