The 9th Circuit's Prop 8 ruling is a significant win.
Marriage Equality is essentially secure in California. The bigots have lost the fight. There is still a question of whether the Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the decision and if they do whether the Court's decision will be narrowly tailored to California or reach more broadly to marriage equality throughout the country.
The Appeals decision yesterday, on a 2-1 vote, reads as applicable to California only, but relying heavily on Kennedy's arguments in Romer v. Evans. This was very sound holding that found since CA granted same-sex couples the right to marry, it would be a violation of the US Constitution to take those rights away.
California opponents to marriage equality have 21 days to appeal to the full Appeals panel, of 11 judges. If they don't gays and lesbian couples can begin marrying at that time. I feel confident the full panel would affirm yesterday's holding.
Or, opponents can appeal within 90 days directly to the Supreme Court. With the opinion resting so soundly on previous Supreme Court rulings, using Kennedy's opinion, I also feel confident the Supreme Court would affirm, but probably only narrowly as it relates to California. It wold likely only reach so broad to hold that when a state grants the right to marry to same-sex couples, it would violate the Constitution to later take those rights away.
The Supreme Court may decline to hear it for that same reason, that this is a California issue. They could decline to hear it on direct appeal or from an appeal of the full panel, should it go there first.
Regardless of whether the Supreme Court hears it soon, it will create a Circuit split that the Court will have to resolve at some point. As other states that have granted marriage equality try to undo it. Most importantly for California, once the bigots have exhausted their appeals, marriage equality will be securely there to stay.
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