Pro-family leaders expect California’s Supreme Court to rule against Proposition 8, a referendum which upheld 
traditional marriage and which was backed by the voters in 2008, after closing arguments on the appeal against it finished last week.
It is expected that, whatever the finding, the losing side will appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.
Representatives of both sides rehearsed the testimony and arguments already presented to the judge throughout the trial, during a 5-hour long concluding session.
Opponents of Proposition 8 claimed a fundamental right to marriage that extends to same-sex couples, and compared the ban on same-sex “marriage” to historical bans on interracial marriage.
Meanwhile, the defense maintained that the state has a fundamental interest in the fruitful union between a man and a woman that simply does not pertain to same-sex relations.
Ted Olson and David Boies, the legal team arguing against Prop 8, insisted that the measure was “an attempt to enforce private moral beliefs about a disfavored minority” backed by pro-family religious groups such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Knights of Columbus.
Both institutions have been subject to a hail of threats for playing an active role in supporting Prop 8 in the lead-up to the 2008 vote.
Chuck Cooper, lead lawyer for the popularly approved measure, argued that several court rulings in other states have recognised that instituting same-sex “marriage” essentially changes the definition of marriage as understood in common law, and that California has always understood marriage to be between a man and a woman.
He also argued that marriage was a public institution of key import to the stability of a society, rather than a matter of private choice.
The closing arguments also touched upon the matter of the approximately 18,000 marriage contracts handed out to homosexual couples in the brief interim in 2008 when California, thanks to a ruling by the state Supreme Court, recognized the existence of same-sex “marriage.”
Prop 8 defendants argued that the state is blatantly ignoring the “expressed will of the people” by refusing to consider the contracts invalid. Proposition 8 states that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage, said that in her view the judge “came into this courtroom strongly inclined to rule against Prop 8.”
“His interjections indicate pretty strongly that that’s what he’s going to do. I expect he will overturn Prop 8 – I don’t think it’s because of arguments that were made in the courtroom that day,” Gallagher told LifeSiteNews.com Thursday.
Gallagher said that Judge Walker “seemed extremely open to one side of the arguments and he seemed to have difficulty understanding the other side’s arguments.”
An example of the communication rift was when Cooper was forced to explain that procreation’s central role in marriage was patently clear from the laws of nature, after Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker pressed Cooper for “evidence” that such was the case. It was earlier revealed that Walker is himself openly homosexual.
Gallagher also noted that reporters at a press conference “burst into applause” when the anti-Prop 8 lawyers ascended to the microphone. “I think that says a lot about the media’s preferences on this issue,” she said.
A ruling on the case is expected within the summer months.