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It's the rare moment when we can look at a current issue as if we're viewing it through the lens of history, but that's what it's beginning to feel like when it comes to gay marriage. Trotting out their old, unsupported arguments against marriage equality, Prop 8 supporters put their case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court today.
The petition, filed by Prop 8 lawyer Charles Cooper, asks the Court to review the decision by a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which determined that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. As evidence that marriage is sacrosanct and shouldn't be redefined, Cooper's brief quotes ideas about marriage that date back to the late 1800s ("[marriage is] the foundation of the family and of society"), and includes such language as:
"[gay marriage will have] widespread and immediate negative consequences," and "it is difficult to think of a law with deeper roots in California’s and our Nation’s history and practices than one defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman."