Dude, why must I have needed to go to law school? Have you? Nope.. At least i have represented myself in many legal battles (mostly family court) and won, and I also took on the Attorney General of Canada, and the Queen of England and beat them as well, so i know a thing or two about the law there sunshine. I understand all the standards for review in every legal action I have ever been involved in. For instance I am currently representing myself (tomorrow in fact) facing contempt charges from my evil ex wife concerning civil contempt. The attorney for my wife is a moron but she keeps using him, even though I have soundly thrashed him on more than a few occassions.. In this latest escapade he made a major error in his contempt pleading and on that alone I will win..
In any regard sexual orientation is what Walker was trying to get around with his rationale on gender based discrimination. His decision and ruling was on gender NOT sexual orientation, and he used a rational basis test as the standard of review, which by the way was the correct review. problem is that in order for his ruling to prevail he needed to show that gender was in fact being discriminated against, and it is not, and was not. The plaintiffs in prop 8 needed to show that gender was the basis of discrimination, and in order for that to survive 14th scruitiny they needed to show that both men and women were being discriminated against. However, they failed to do that, men and women are equally restricted from marrying someone of the same sex. Now if men could marry men, and also women, and women could only marry men, then THIS would be cause for strict scrutiny and a proper 14th challenge. Another way of looking at it is to say that both men and women are being discriminted against, but the law doesn't work that way.
Tim-