By The Editors

The California Supreme Court’s ruling this week upholding the proposition that bans gay marriage in the state sets “a dangerous precedent” because it places “the rights of minority groups at the whim of the majority,” the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said in a statement released today.

LDF had joined with the Asian American Pacific Legal Center, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Society, and the California NAACP, in filing a friend of the court brief calling for the invalidation of Proposition 8.  Earlier this year, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down similar limits on same-sex marriage and since then several state legislatures have passed laws allowing same-sex marriage.

The full LDF Statement:

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is disappointed in the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, prohibiting same-sex marriage in the state of California.  The Court ruled that under the California Constitution, the voters can restrict the official “marriage” designation to apply only to opposite-sex couples.

By allowing a bare majority of the California electorate to deny access to marriage to a minority group, the California Supreme Court set a dangerous precedent.   A fundamental principle of the California Constitution is that all persons enjoy equal protection of the laws.  Proposition 8 strikes at the core of that principle, by placing the rights of minority groups at the whim of the majority.  In precisely these circumstances, the courts play a special constitutional role in protecting minority rights – yet the California Supreme Court abandoned that role in letting Proposition 8 stand.

“Yesterday, the California Supreme Court left the rights of all minority groups in harm’s way.  In the wake of this decision, we must renew efforts to protect those rights and ensure that equal protection applies to all,” said LDF President and Director-Counsel John Payton.