Bad Guys File Prop8 appeal, attack judge

From Prop8 trial tracker, describing the appeal brief:

it targets Judge Vaughn Walker for being “egregiously selective and one-sided.”

An example:

The State, it follows, “has no obligation to produce evidence to sustain the rationality of” its laws. Heller, 509 U.S. at 320 (emphasis added). To the contrary, the State’s “legislative choice is not subject to courtroom factfinding and may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data.”

A trial tracker comments,

It’s true that it can be based on rational speculation…. but the key word here is “rational.”

IF the standard of review is only “rational basis”, then the court can actually come up with its own rationale for the law, even if the parties have not presented one. However, neither the Proponents nor Walker could come up with any justification for the law that was “rationally related” to a “legitimate” government interest.

AFER's response

:
“Regardless of the defendant-intervenors’ protests, the fact remains that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, as was proven conclusively and unequivocally through a full federal trial. There is no getting around the fact that the court’s decision was based on our nation’s most fundamental principles, and that the Constitution does not permit unequal treatment under the law,” said Chad Griffin, Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights. “We are eager to proceed with affirming the unconstitutionality of Prop. 8, and the equality of all Americans, in the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court.”