PROP 8 UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
St Louis plans big rally in Clayton
SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI – AUGUST 4, 2010 – At 3:45pm, in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal lawsuit challenging California’s Prop 8, Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled that Prop 8 is unconstitutional and violates the United States Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection of the laws. In 2004, Missouri voters passed a similar Prop 8 style marriage amendment defining marriage only between one man and one woman. Today, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s verdict sends a chilling reality that Missouri’s Marriage Amendment is federally unconstitutional. Local marriage equality advocates are organizing a “Marriage Equality Rally,” in Clayton, Missouri in front of the St. Louis County Courts Building (at Carondelet and South Central Avenues.)
Tomorrow’s celebration coincides when the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) ‘Summer of Marriage Tour’ stops at Memorial Park in Clayton, Missouri. The organization was founded in 2007 to finance the California discriminatory Proposition 8 ballot measure. NOM is considered the most influential group opposed to same-sex marriage in state legislatures.
“Today's federal ruling strikes down a cruel and unfair constitutional amendment that should never have become law and affirms that the freedom to marry belongs to every American. As the first court to strike down race restrictions on marriage said in 1948, ‘the essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage with the person of one's choice.’ There is no gay exception in the Constitution to personal choice and the right to marry, and there is no good reason to continue excluding same-sex couples from marriage,” affirms Evan Wolfson, Director of Freedom to Marry.
“Tomorrow’s rally starting at 5:30pm outside the St. Louis County Courts in Clayton Missouri, where hundreds of gay, poor, white, straight, black, Jewish, Christian and middle class residents will stand in support of ending the discrimination of same-sex couples living in Missouri,” says Ed Reggi the founder of ShowMeNoHate. Reggi made national news when he was the first to legally marry his spouse Scott Emanuel last year in Iowa City, IA.
