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AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
The Federal Appeals Court today announced that oral arguments for the appeal of Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, will be heard at 10 a.m. on December 6th.
Prop 8 backers are appealing a lower court desicion from August where Judge Vaughn Walker's August struck the voter-approved initiative down, calling it unconstitutional.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights, which filed a lawsuit against the state to fight Prop 8, will argue why an appeals court panel of three judges should uphold Walker's decision.
"Fourteen times the Supreme Court has stated that marriage is a fundamental
right of all individuals," they said in opening remarks in their brief filed last week. "This case tests the proposition whether the gay and lesbian Americans among us should be counted as 'persons' under the Fourteenth Amendment, or whether they constitute a permanent underclass ineligible for protection under that cornerstone of our Constitution."
Last month, the official backers of Prop 8, Protect Marriage, submitted their brief to the judges, saying Walker "'quite willfully' disregarded a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court precedent and other relevant information when he decided the measure was an unconstitutional violation of gay Californians' civil rights," according to the Washington Post.
