Court Opinion

ID: 9786053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:46:11.380636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:40.341066
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring.
I write separately to explain how the court’s decision here is consistent with Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1055 [17 Cal.Rptr.3d 225, 95 P.3d 459] (Lockyer), to note Lockyer's effect on marriages of same-sex couples previously performed in this state, and to emphasize my agreement with the Chief Justice that the constitutionality of the marriage laws’ exclusion of same-sex couples is an issue particularly appropriate for decision by this court.
As the opening words of the Chief Justice’s majority opinion indicate, this case is a continuation of Lockyer. There, this court held that local officials had acted unlawfully by issuing gender-neutral marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the officials made a legal determination that depriving same-sex couples of the right to marry was unconstitutional. (Lockyer, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 1069, 1104-1105.) Here, this court holds that under the state Constitution’s equal protection guarantee, same-sex couples have a right to marry, and that state officials should take all necessary and appropriate steps so that local officials may begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 855-857.)
From such brief descriptions, these two decisions may appear inconsistent. What this court determined to be unlawful in Lockyer, and ordered city *858officials to immediately stop doing, is the same action that must now, by virtue of this court’s decision here, be recommenced—issuing marriage licenses to couples consisting of either two women or two men. There is no inconsistency, however, in these two decisions. In Lockyer, this court did not decide whether the California Constitution’s equal protection guarantee affords a right of marriage to same-sex couples. (Lockyer, supra, 33 Cal.4th at p. 1069.) Rather, this court decided only that local officials lacked authority to decide the constitutional validity of the state marriage statutes and instead should have submitted that question to the judiciary for resolution. (Ibid.) Now that this court has authoritatively and conclusively resolved the underlying constitutional question by holding that state marriage laws are constitutionally invalid insofar as they discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples is lawful, and indeed constitutionally required.
In Lockyer, this court declared void all of the approximately 4,000 marriages performed in San Francisco under the licenses issued to same-sex couples (Lockyer, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 1117-1118), and the court here does not undertake any reconsideration of the validity of those marriages. I disagreed with Lockyer's nullification of those marriages. Recognizing that many of the individuals to whom those licenses had been issued had “waited years, sometimes several decades, for a chance to wed, yearning to obtain the public validation that only marriage can give” (Lockyer, supra, at p. 1132 (cone. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.)), I took the position that the validity of those marriages should be determined “after the constitutionality of California laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples has been authoritatively resolved through judicial proceedings now pending in the courts of California” (id. at p. 1125).
' I explained my position in these words: “Whether the issuance of a gender-neutral license to a same-sex couple, in violation of state laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, is a defect that precludes any possibility of a valid marriage may well depend upon resolution of the constitutional validity of that statutory restriction. If the restriction is constitutional, then a marriage between persons of the same sex would be a legal impossibility, and no marriage would ever have existed. But if the restriction violates a fundamental constitutional right, the situation could be quite different. A court might then be required to determine the validity of same-sex marriages that had been performed before the laws prohibiting those marriages had been invalidated on constitutional grounds, [f] When a court has declared a law unconstitutional, questions about the effect of that determination on prior actions, events, and transactions ‘are among the most difficult of those which have engaged the attention of courts, state and federal, and it is manifest from numerous decisions that an all-inclusive statement of a principle of absolute retroactive invalidity cannot be justified.’ *859(Chicot County Dist. v. Bank (1940) 308 U.S. 371, 374 [84 L.Ed. 329, 60 S.Ct. 317]; accord, Lemon v. Kurtzman [(1973) 411 U.S. 192,] 198 [36 L.Ed.2d 151, 93 S.Ct. 1463].) This court has acknowledged that, in appropriate circumstances, an unconstitutional statute may be judicially reformed to retroactively extend its benefits to a class that the statute expressly but improperly excluded. (Kopp v. Fair Pol. Practices Com. (1995) 11 Cal.4th 607, 624—625 [47 Cal.Rptr.2d 108, 905 P.2d 1248] (lead opn. of Lucas, C. J.), 685 (cone. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J.) [joining in pt. Ill of lead opn.].) Thus, it is possible, though by no means certain, that if the state marriage laws prohibiting same-sex marriage were held to violate the state Constitution, same-sex marriages performed before that determination could then be recognized as valid.” (Lockyer, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 1131-1132 (conc. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)
Recognizing that this court’s decision in Lockyer finally and conclusively invalidated the marriages of same-sex couples performed in San Francisco in 2004, the parties have not asked this court to again address that issue here, and this court has not done so. Nevertheless, in my view, it is important to recognize how today’s holding could have affected a decision on the validity of those marriages. In light of our determination here that same-sex couples are entitled under the state Constitution to the same marriage rights as opposite-sex couples, this court—had it in Lockyer deferred until now a decision on the validity of the previously performed marriages of same-sex couples—necessarily would have recognized that the defects in those marriages were not substantive (in other words, no valid law prohibited the marriages) but rather procedural (the marriages were premature in the sense that they were performed before rather than after a judicial determination of the couples’ right to marry), and that the parties to these marriages were attempting in good faith to exercise their rights under the state Constitution. Because of Lockyer, however, those marriage ceremonies, performed with great joy and celebration, must remain “empty and meaningless ... in the eyes of the law.” (Lockyer, supra, 33 Cal.4th at p. 1132 (conc. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)
The court’s opinion, authored by the Chief Justice, carefully and fully explains why the constitutionality of the marriage laws’ exclusion of same-sex couples is an issue particularly appropriate for decision by this court, rather than a social or political issue inappropriate for judicial consideration. (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 849-853.) Because of its importance, this point deserves special emphasis.
In holding today that the right to marry guaranteed by the state Constitution may not be withheld from anyone on the ground of sexual orientation, this court discharges its gravest and most important responsibility under our *860constitutional form of government. There is a reason why the words “Equal Justice Under Law” are inscribed above the entrance to the courthouse of the United States Supreme Court. Both the federal and the state Constitutions guarantee to all the “equal protection of the laws” (U.S. Const., 14th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 7), and it is the particular responsibility of the judiciary to enforce those guarantees. The architects of our federal and state Constitutions understood that widespread and deeply rooted prejudices may lead majoritarian institutions to deny fundamental freedoms to unpopular minority groups, and that the most effective remedy for this form of oppression is an independent judiciary charged with the solemn responsibility to interpret and enforce the constitutional provisions guaranteeing fundamental freedoms and equal protection. (See Davis v. Passman (1979) 442 U.S. 228, 241 [60 L.Ed.2d 846, 99 S.Ct. 2264] [describing the judiciary as “the primary means” for enforcement of constitutional rights]; Bixby v. Pierno (1971) 4 Cal.3d 130, 141 [93 Cal.Rptr. 234, 481 P.2d 242] [stating that, under our constitutional system of checks and balances, “probably the most fundamental [protection] lies in the power of the courts to test legislative and executive acts by the light of constitutional mandate and in particular to preserve constitutional rights, whether of individual or minority, from obliteration by the majority”].)
Here, we decide only the scope of the equal protection guarantee under the state Constitution, which operates independently of the federal Constitution. (See Cal. Const., art. I, § 24 [“Rights guaranteed by this Constitution are not dependent on those guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”].) Absent a compelling justification, our state government may not deny a right as fundamental as marriage to any segment of society. Whether an unconstitutional denial of a fundamental right has occurred is not a matter to be decided by the executive or legislative branch, or by popular vote, but is instead an issue of constitutional law for resolution by the judicial branch of state government. Indeed, this court’s decision in Lockyer made it clear that the courts alone must decide whether excluding individuals from marriage because of sexual orientation can be reconciled with our state Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. (Lockyer, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 1068-1069.) The court today discharges its constitutional obligation by resolving that issue.
With these observations, I concur fully in the court’s opinion authored by the Chief Justice.