Illinois Family Institute joined many other pro-family organizations in submitting a Friend of the Court (amicus) brief in the California Proposition 8 appeal. A federal judge overturned California’s voter-approved marriage amendment (Proposition 8) earlier this year. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and other organizations have filed an appeal with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court.

The lawsuit against Proposition 8 began when two homosexual couples sued to have the ballot initiative thrown out. In August, the district court struck down the proposition, saying that homosexual partners have a fundamental right to marry and that limiting marriage to a man and a woman has no “rational basis.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed the district judge’s ruling while it weighs the appeal.

The Ninth Circuit Court is widely viewed as the most liberal in the country, but some law experts say the original case was decided so badly that the Court may have little choice but to overturn the ruling. If they agree with the lower court ruling, however, the case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a OneNewsNow article, ADF attorney Jim Campbell says that the Proposition 8 case has the potential to impact marriage and the use of the democratic process nationwide.

“What the lower court said here in essence is that it violates the United States Constitution to define marriage and to preserve marriage as the union between a man and a woman,” Campbell explains. “So if that decision were to be upheld, it could have ramifications throughout the entire country.”

The ADF attorney thinks Judge Vaughn Walker ignored binding precedent and the law, and he feels it is unfortunate that “the judge elevated himself above the people of California and determined that his view of marriage is what should govern, rather than the view of more than seven million Californians.”

For the novel idea that marriage may be between other groups than one man and one woman, the District Court sacrificed ‘the most fundamental individual liberty of our people’: the right to self-government. If the district court’s decision to abolish the citizens of California’s laws and to invest itself with the power to legislate for the people of California is upheld, the ‘new Guard’ is but following the old and we have come full circle.

Click HERE to read the Amicus Brief.