American Foundation for Equal Rights

WSJ: Plaintiffs Wrap Up Challenge to Gay-Marriage Ban

Plaintiffs prepared to rest their case Friday in the federal trial over California’s Proposition 8, setting the stage for backers of the ban on same-sex marriage to open their direct line of defense.

“We’re pleased with the way it has gone,” said David Boies, an attorney for the gay couples that want to wed. He said he set out to prove that marriage was an important right, that gays were harmed by being denied it and that marriage wouldn’t be hurt by extending it to same-sex couples. “We’ve proven all three of those,” he said.

Judge Vaughn Walker will decide whether the 2008 voter initiative that limited marriage to a “man and a woman” codified discrimination or protected a legitimate state interest. This is the first federal challenge to state gay-marriage bans.

Read the rest of Geoffrey Fowler’s Wall Street Journal article here.