will allow gay marriages to resume in california. the judge has now ruled proposition 8 is unconstitutional so if he lifts his stay, same-sex marriages could resume. or he could continue the stay as long as it s on appeal. or there s, i suppose, an interim measure, where he says, look, i m going to have a stay that lasts a couple of weeks, time enough to get the ninth circuit of appeals to see if they want to get the stay going while the case is on appeal. you can assume that if the judge lifts the stay, the proponents of prop 8 will immediately appeal and try to get the stay reimposed. however, there s a question about whether they have the legal right to do that. the state of california, which is it s law, it s part of the constitution has elected not to defend this law. so there is some legal question about whether the proponents of prop 8, who some have said would not themselves suffer any immediate concrete injury we
they ll immediately go to the court of appeals for the ninth circuit and try to get the stay reimposed. if they try to do that, chris, a bit of a legal wrinkle here. some uncertain legal territory about whether people like the proponents of prop 8, who are not the state, who are not defending their own state law have the legal authority to go into a court of appeals and begin to relitigate. that is a somewhat technical question that has not been answered, but the immediate question right now is what will the judge do this morning? we should know in about maybe three, four hours. if he lifts that hold on his ruling, could people go and get married immediately? without question. the law in california would be that the marriages are now allowed because prop 8 has been held to be unconstitutional. this is good for california only. his ruling is only about proposition 8, it wouldn t apply in any other state. yes, unquestionably, people