SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court is set to hear legal challenges in San Francisco to the ban on same-sex marriage in California's Proposition 8.
Arguments set to begin Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit will center on whether Proposition 8 treats gay couples as second-class citizens or whether society, which has traditionally defined marriage as between a man and woman, may continue to do so, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday.
In the spring of 2009, the California Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8, which banned same-sex marriage, initiating a lawsuit by a civil rights group suing to overturn the law.
"(Proposition 8's) unmistakable purpose and effect is to isolate gay men and lesbians and their relationships as separate, unusual, dangerous and unworthy of the marital relationship," the group's lawyer Theodore Olson, President George W. Bush's solicitor general, wrote in his 9th Circuit brief.
"Before the recent movement to redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships, it was commonly understood and acknowledged that the institution of marriage owed its very existence to society's vital interest in responsible procreation and child rearing," Proposition 8 backers wrote in their appeal.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker struck down the gay marriage ban in August as government-sponsored discrimination, paving the way for the case to go to the 9th Circuit Court, and possibly, the United States Supreme Court, the newspaper said.
