Here's what the court said about yesterday's decision:
The 136-page majority opinion notes at the outset that the court’s role is not to determine whether
Proposition 8 “is wise or sound as a matter of policy or whether we, as individuals believe it should
be a part of the California Constitution,” but rather “is limited to interpreting and applying the
principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs
and values.”
The opinion further emphasizes that the principal legal issue in this case is entirely distinct from the
issue that was presented in the court’s decision last year in In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th
757. There, the court was called upon to determine “the validity (or invalidity) of a statutory
provision limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman under state constitutional
provisions that do not expressly permit or prescribe such a limitation.” In the present case, by
contrast, the principal issue “concerns the scope of the right of the people, under the provisions of
the California Constitution, to change or alter the state Constitution itself through the initiative
process so as to incorporate such a limitation as an explicit section of the state Constitution.”
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/newsreleases/NR29-09.PDF