The Gay Thread

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I should correct something I alluded to earlier. The findings regarding unconstitutionality will be reviewed de novo by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning 'from the beginning.' But those rulings will still be based on Judge Walker's exhaustive Findings of Fact, which can only be reversed if exceptional error is found in them.

A reviewing court does not have to upset any of the findings of fact to apply the legal standard of whether the law meets the low rational basis standard for constitutionality. Scalia's view is that states may enact moral judgments so long as they do not intrude on any constitutionally protected class, so his threshold for rationality is certain to be very low, if indeed, he doesn't find a way to skirt the standard of review entirely.