Dissenting Justices Call Out Reinhardt--Supreme Court Next for Proposition 8!

In a foregone conclusion, the Ninth Circuit today refused the petition for an en banc rehearing of Judge Reinhardt's anti-marriage ruling. But the case gave the Ninth's few good justices a chance for some well-directed fire at Judge Reinhardt's decision.

From the great Ed Whelan:

"In an unsurprising development (unsurprising, especially, given how dysfunctional and left-tilting the Ninth Circuit is), the Ninth Circuit today denied Prop 8 proponents’ petition for rehearing en banc of Judge Reinhardt’s anti-Prop 8 ruling.

In a very brief dissent, Judge O’Scannlain, joined by Judges Bybee and Bea, decries Reinhardt’s 'gross misapplication of Romer v. Evans' in 'declar[ing] that animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign State to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia.' Reinhardt’s reading of Romer, O’Scannlain correctly observes, 'would be unrecognizable to the Justices who joined it, to those who dissented from it, and to the judges from sister circuits who have since interpreted it.' O’Scannlain criticizes the court for having 'so roundly trumped California’s democratic process without at least discussing this unparalleled decision as an en banc court.'”