Major ruling on same-sex marriage. Miramonte staff to be replaced. Tinker Tailor Author Screenwriter.
Court: Same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional
Today, a federal appeals court ruled that California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
The ruling states: "Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted."
Backers of Proposition 8 said they would ask the Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit ruling.
"No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,'' said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group based in Arizona that helped defend Proposition 8.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals first heard arguments more than year ago. It had been weighing whether the trial judge should have disclosed his own same-sex relationship before the first court challenge began. Additionally, the three-judge panel considered whether backers of Proposition 8 have legal standing in the case – a position they've assumed because the state declined to fight against gay rights activists.
Prop 8 watchers were eager to hear this ruling, they even parsed yesterday's two-sentence announcement for any significance. It stated: "The Court anticipates filing an opinion tomorrow (Tuesday, February 7) by 10:00 a.m. in Perry v. Brown..., regarding the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and the denial of a motion to vacate the lower court judgment in the case. A summary of the opinion prepared by court staff will be posted along with the opinion." Some analysts took this to mean the judges chose to accept the legal standing of the Proposition 8 interveners and ignored the sexual orientation of the trial judge.
With files from the Associated Press
WEIGH IN:
“AirTalk” wants to hear your reaction to the ruling. What will be the scope of the ruling? How long until this case reaches its final conclusion? What is the status of same-sex marriage laws around the country and federally?
Guests:
Julie Small, KPCC’s State Capital Reporter
Rick Jacobs, Founder & Chair, The Courage Campaign
John Eastman, Chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, Former Dean and Professor, Chapman University School of Law
Eugene Volokh, the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law
Read the full text of the Ninth Circuit's decision here.
Clean sweep at Miramonte
Last night at a meeting for Miramonte parents at South Region High School in Southeast L.A., Superintendent John Deasy announced that all 150 teachers at the school would be replaced over the next two days.
According to Deasy, there’s a sacred trust between educators, parents and students and that trust has been broken. Miramonte Elementary will be closed for the next two days while the transition is taking place, and when students come back on Thursday, they’ll have a new teacher and a counselor in each classroom. This will be a massive undertaking.
Miramonte is one of the largest elementary schools in the district, serving 1500 students. New teachers will have to be hired and installed in classrooms while the old teachers – none of whom are under suspicion at this point – will wait in another school to find out if they’ll get their old jobs back.
WEIGH IN:
Is this the right choice for students? Did the district cave to parent pressure? Or was this the only course of action they could take to reinstate the trust they lost when two long term teachers were accused of misconduct with children?
Guests:
Tami Abdollah, KPCC Reporter
Vanessa Romo, KPCC Reporter
Monica Garcia, President, Board of Education Los Angeles Unified School District
Bill Ring, Director and Founder of TransParent, a parent advocacy and leadership development organization; Former Chairman of Parent Collaborative
Tinker Tailor Author Screenwriter
Peter Straughan has said that the project of adapting the Cold War thriller by iconic author John le Carré began “in a state of fear.” Le Carré is a revered writer who has elevated the spy genre into literature, and his fans are legion. In fact, the work that Straughan and his screenwriter wife, the late Bridget O’Connor, were asked to tackle had already been made into a successful 1979 BBC miniseries, which was hailed as a masterpiece.
The very idea of meeting Le Carré – let alone transferring his less than heroic hero, George Smiley, and his menacingly beige world to the screen – was intimidating. But Straughan found the author to be everything an adaptor could hope for – generous, supportive, inventive, and far less precious about fidelity to the novel than the screenwriters expected.
Straughan, who has written screenplays for “The Debt” and “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” among others, describes the process of adapting stories to film as “a kind of foster parenting.” He joins Larry to talk about the year-long process of writing the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”
Guest:
Peter Straughan, screenwriter for the movie “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”