Clint Eastwood and two former Republican presidential candidates have joined the ranks of high profile Americans urging the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8.
The actor, along with former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge and former Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and close to 80 other Republicans sent a “friend of the court” brief to the Supreme Court Thursday urging it to overturn California’s law banning same-sex marriage.
President Barack Obama also sent a brief to the court this week asking it to take the side of gay marriage advocates.
California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris has called on the Supreme Court to overturn the same-sex marriage ban authorized by popular referendum, because it “strip[s] loving relationships of validation and dignity under the law,” according to an amicus brief.
“The fact that same-sex couples cannot conceive a biological child is not a legitimate reason to deny them civil marriage,” the attorney general said in the brief. “A biological distinction is not alone sufficient to satisfy the Equal Protection Clause; rather, that difference must be related to some legitimate governmental interest.”
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear California’s case March 26.
According to a new survey conducted by The Field Poll group, 61 percent of California voters are now in favor of same-sex marriage, “the highest level of support ever measured by the poll.” Only 32 percent of California voters said they did not approve.
If these findings are accurate, this is a significant leap from the results from the state referendum in 2008. Fifty-two percent of California voters said yes to Proposition 8 compared to the 47 percent that voted it down.
While more and more Republicans are supporting gay marriage, conservatives argue that a Supreme Court ruling overturning a state referendum like Proposition 8 could have damaging effects to the democratic process. Regardless of where one stands on the issue of gay marriage, it could send the message that the voices of a few unelected Americans are more important than what the majority of citizens voted into law.
