1. a) Define stay as used in paragraph 1.
b) Why are traditional values groups asking the California Supreme Court to stay its decision legalizing gay marriage?

2. What does Proposition 22 state?

3. What will happen if Prop 22 passes?

4. How did California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger react to the Court's ruling?

5. a) Define dissent as used in Supreme Court rulings when some judges make a "dissenting opinion."
b) Justice Carol Corrigan did not agree with the majority. In her dissenting opinion she made reference to the 2000 initiative by which the people of California voted to ban same sex marriage:
"In my view, Californians should allow our gay and lesbian neighbors to call their unions marriages. But I, and this court, must acknowledge that a majority of Californians hold a different view, and have explicitly said so by their vote. This court can overrule a vote of the people only if the Constitution compels us to do so. Here, the Constitution does not. Therefore, I must dissent."
What do you think of Justice Corrigan's reason for dissenting from the majority opinion?

6. Justice Marvin Baxter also opposed the majority ruling. In his dissenting opinion he said:
"History confirms the importance of the judiciary's constitutional role as a check against majoritarian abuse. Still, courts must use caution when exercising the potentially transformative authority to articulate constitutional rights. Otherwise, judges with limited accountability risk infringing upon our society's most basic shared premise - the People's general right, directly or through their chosen legislators, to decide fundamental issues of public policy for themselves. Judicial restraint is particularly appropriate where, as here, the claimed constitutional entitlement is of recent conception and challenges the most fundamental assumption about a basic social institution.
The majority has violated these principles. It simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice."
What do you think of Justice Baxter's reasoning for his dissent?