Hollingsworth v. Perry (formerly Perry v. Brown and Perry v. Schwarzenegger), 570 U.S. ___ (2013) (Docket No. 12-144), is aUnited States Supreme Court decision that held that in line with prior precedent, the official sponsors of Proposition 8, a Californiaballot initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage, did not have Article III standing to appeal an adverse federal court ruling when the state refused to do so.[2] It also held (at district court rather than Supreme Court) that the attempt to forbid recognition of same-sex marriage in California by way of an amendment to the State Constitution after it had been previously permitted, had been unconstitutional.
After California's Supreme Court affirmed Proposition 8 in May 2009 (Strauss v. Horton), it was challenged by two same-sex couples in Federal Court. The State of California declined to defend the law, so the official proponents of Proposition 8 defended it instead. In his August 2010 ruling, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker found that Proposition 8 had violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment because there was no rational basis for re-refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples,[3] and because "The evidence demonstrated beyond serious reckoning that Proposition 8 finds support only in ... disapproval [and] As such, Proposition 8 is beyond the constitutional reach of the voters or their representatives."[4] The opinion included over 50 pages listing trial testimony and evidence on 80 findings of fact.[5]
With the State of California choosing not to appeal the District Court ruling, the proponents of Proposition 8 did, to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.[6] After asking the California Supreme Court to determine if the proponents had standing under California law to appeal, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court's decision with more narrow reasoning,[3][7] concurring that "Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen [same-sex] status and human dignity ... and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior", thereby "subject[ing] a minority group to the deprivation of an existing right without a legitimate reason" and that "[t]he Constitution simply does not allow for 'laws of this sort'."[8]
The proponents then appealed again, to the U.S. Supreme Court on July 31, 2012.[9] In a 5–4 decision issued on June 26, 2013, the Court held that the Ninth Circuit had erred in not dismissing the proponents' previous appeal, since in line with a "lengthy pedigree" of similar past rulings,[10] the initiative's proponents lacked any requisite direct injury, which was needed for legal standing in a Federal Court, under Article III of the U.S. Constitution (the "Case or Controversy" clause). They therefore dismissed the appeal and instructed the Ninth Circuit to likewise vacate (withdraw) their own previous appeal,[2] establishing Judge Walker's opinion as the final decision in the underlying case.[11][12] The minority dissent considered that standing should not have been allowed to be an issue, as the "basic premise of the initiative process [and] essence of democracy is that the right to make law rests in the people and flows to the government, not the other way around".[2]
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