Eric Arnold

Same-sex marriage supporters gathered in the Castro District and marched to San Francisco's City Hall Aug. 4, 2010

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s excoriating ruling striking down Proposition 8, the statewide ban on same-sex marriage, reflects an increasingly bitter struggle that is almost certain to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Walker, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, issued what amounted to a 136-page denunciation of the controversial law, which passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote. The law, he wrote, violates the Constitution and undermines the basic rights of gay and lesbian couples.

“That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant,” Walker wrote, citing a previous ruling that “fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

After a celebration outside the federal courthouse, dozens of supporters of same-sex marriage marched spontaneously to City Hall with a lesbian couple, Maria Ydil and Vannessa Judicpa, who hoped to be married. The attempt was thwarted when Walker issued a temporary stay, giving Prop. 8 supporters until Friday to submit arguments about why he should suspend same-sex marriages.

But Walker is unlikely to extend the stay, legal analysts said. If he doesn’t, proponents will likely request another stay from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to prevent same-sex marriages from taking place.

Walker’s opinion was seeded with open contempt for Prop. 8 and what he repeatedly described as weak or nonexistent evidence offered in its support.

“Because the evidence shows same-sex marriage has and will have no adverse effects on society or the institution of marriage, California has no interest in waiting and no practical need to wait to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples,” he wrote.

The aftermath of the ruling reflected the deep societal divisions that run through the issue. Bryan Fischer, an official with the American Family Association, which donated $500,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign in 2008, called the ruling “a monstrous, egregious, misguided, misbegotten and evil abuse of judicial power.”

“It’s immoral for one judge in a black robe to overturn the will of the people,” Fischer said.

Attorney Charles J. Cooper, who led the Prop. 8 proponents’ legal team, said in a statement: “Today, a single federal judge has negated the will of the people of California. The central premise of the court’s ruling is that it is irrational for the citizenry to decide to retain the traditional definition of marriage.”

During the run-up to the ruling, Prop. 8 supporters had generally shied away from making Walker’s sexual orientation – he is openly gay – an issue. But some conservative commentators raised the subject while criticizing the opinion. Gerard V. Bradley, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame University, wrote on FoxNews.com that the media had ignored Walker’s sexual orientation as a source of bias in the case.

Emotions were equally high as some 300 supporters of same-sex marriage marched down Market Street to City Hall in celebration early Wednesday evening.

Mickey Lim, a San Francisco pharmacist, walked with his 2-year-old daughter Alicia on his shoulders. Lim, an Air Force veteran, said the ruling “shows that basic individual rights cannot be trampled on by a mob, whether the mob is carrying pitchforks or at the voting booth.”

Many people in the crowd had experienced the legal roller coaster that has marked gay marriage for more than a decade, especially in the Bay Area. Bruce Ivie walked arm in arm with his husband David Bowers. The two were married in 2004 when Mayor Gavin Newsom, in defiance of state law, began issuing marriage licenses. That marriage was annulled six months later when the California Supreme Court ruled that Newsom had overstepped his authority. Ivie and Bowers were married again when the state Supreme Court overturned a state ban on same-sex marriage, a decision that led to the passage of Prop. 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Ivie reserved his highest praise for Walker. “This is a very respected judge, but I never expected a decision with such strength and power,” he said. “I had hoped, but I didn’t expect it.”

In his decision, Walker argued that the ban on same-sex marriage led to economic harm for gay and lesbian couples, as well as local governments; improperly introduced religion into what is essentially a secular tradition; and relegated same-sex couples to domestic partnerships that “lack the social meaning associated with marriage,” which “is widely regarded as the definitive expression of love and commitment in the United States.”

In one passage, Walker invoked slaves to note that marriage is a sacred, inalienable right. “After emancipation, former slaves viewed their ability to marry as one of the most important new rights they had gained,” he wrote.

On page after page, the judge wrote that the ballot measure amounted to discrimination that had been embedded in the state constitution.

The most passionate passages included:

• “The Proposition 8 campaign relied on fears that children exposed to the concept of same-sex marriage may become gay or lesbian. The … advertisements insinuated that learning about same-sex marriage could make a child gay or lesbian and that parents should dread having a gay or lesbian child.”

• “In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents’ case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate.”

• “Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians, including: gays and lesbians do not have intimate relationships similar to heterosexual couples; gays and lesbians are not as good as heterosexuals; and gay and lesbian relationships do not deserve the full recognition of society.”

Rory Little, a law professor at UC Hastings, said that Walker’s ruling exposed how little evidence Prop. 8 proponents had marshaled in the case. "It becomes increasingly clear that there is no evidence that same-sex marriage hurts anyone or anything," he said.