and all the appeals resolve themselves and then have the marriages go forward or not. okay. is that weird for a judge to issue a ruling, and then issue a stay on his own ruling and then rule on that? does this not normally go to a different level or a different court in. no, this isn t all that unusual. i think judge walker is proceeding cautiously. he understands the stakes are very big in this case. and this is an unusual case in many respects. one of the issues that judges always talk about when they talk about issues on appeal and stays, is will there be irreparable harm. that phrase, will there be irreparable harm if the decision is allowed to go forward. and the interesting legal question here is, is a marriage that is later ruled to be not allowed, irreparable harm. is letting people get married, irreparable harm. that s an unusual difficult question. that s what the briefs address. and obviously both sides have
all right. a few moments ago we talked to dan simon who is in the courthouse in san francisco waiting for a ruling on proposition eight. this is the voter-passed proposition that was going to ban gay marriage in california. well a judge issued a stay saying that that couldn t go into effect. he stated his reasons for it. and basically he said it didn t make sense and it wasn t legal. he issued a stay. well he struck it down. and then he issued a someday, because opponents of his ruling had said that he, they don t want people going and getting married if this thing could collapse on appeal. now he is ruling on the stay, deciding whether it s going to stay in place, whether it comes off. whether people can go and get married. it s a bit confusing. we have an expert who can straighten it all out. our legal analyst, jeffrey tu
different views of that. but it s an interesting way to think about the issue that the court has to decide. what does legal history say about that? if this judge lifts this stay, people start getting married, same-sex people start getting married and a few months from nowed on appeal, that gets changed. the people who got married, are those legal marriages? the california supreme court dealt with that exact question. because if you recall a couple of years ago, before proposition eight, there was a brief period in california when same-sex marriages were legal. they were then declared illegal through prop eight. and then the legal question came up, what about these same-sex folks who got married while it was legal? and the court ruled that those marriages are valid. and that s what, and that s a very strong argument in favor of lifting this stay. that the fact that if the law is later declared, if the law is later declared unconstitutional,
couples before the appeal can be heard. these appeals will likely go on for years. cnn correspondent dan simon is in the district courthouse in san francisco. the u.s. district courthouse, awaiting judge vaughan walker s decision. i ve got him on the phone right now at the top. dan? caller: hey, ali, this could come down at any moment if i drop off, forgive me. it s because the ruling has come down. basically, what it comes down to is this, we know that the judge ruled on the proposition eight. that same-sex could resume here in california. the question is, when it will occur. the judge put a temporary stay on the ruling, meaning that no marriages could take place until he decided at a later date, which is today, what s going do happen. there are three rulings that could take place. the judge could say, same-sex marriage could resume right away and that you suddenly could have