Your Heart in San Francisco

It was very special to a lot of residents of the Bay Area to have Tony Bennett in the City today, singing “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” at City Hall on the 50th anniversary of the song. If you were able to attend, you had a rare treat. With rain yesterday and moving in again this evening, even the weather cooperated…it was sunny and in the 50’s. Tony added to the sunshine by serenading the City by the Bay with his signature song. Bay Area residents and even others are fond of throwing around ‘only in San Francisco,’ but in this case, it truly was one of those special moments.

Proposition 8 Held Unconstitutional- What’s Next?

A three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today held 2-1 that California Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. The case was decided on very narrow grounds, and only applies in California. Basically, the Proposition took away the marriage designation to about 18,000 couples who were married during the time it was legal for gay couples to marry in California, but left all the other rights of marriage for them intact.

It will certainly be appealed, ether to the 9th Circuit en banc, or to the US Supreme Court. The opinion is crafted so narrowly that the Supreme Court may actually pass on hearing the appeal. If not, and they hear the case, there is no telling what way they might rule. Due to that very narrow ruling by the 9th Circuit, the holding will probably be quite a narrow ruling as well, whether it upholds or overrules the 9th Circuit panel.

Predictions concerning the Supreme Court’s holdings on cases such as this generally are about as accurate as predicting Superbowl winners at the start of football season, or predicting the weather more than a week out. The best advice…stay tuned!