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San Francisco » The judge who overturned California's gay marriage ban was unrelenting in his repudiation of the measure, saying such laws are mean-spirited and unconstitutional to the core.
It was a harsh yet carefully worded ruling that some experts said would be tough to overturn as the landmark legal debate goes to the appeals court and then possibly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Others say the power of conservative judges on those courts could be enough to thwart gay marriage and stop the movement in its tracks.
Sure to be at the center of the debate is whether California's Proposition 8 violates the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protections for all and declares that government won't take away "life, liberty or property" without due process.
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said on several occasions in his ruling that he believes gay marriage bans clearly deprive people of those rights.
"The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples," he said.
Walker's ruling offers a preview of some of the arguments that will play out on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- the nation's largest and most unpredictable federal appeals court.
Experts say the court will play a huge role in determining the future of the case.
A randomly selected three-judge panel of the court will consider the case next. The 9th Circuit is viewed as a liberal court, but its sheer size of 27 active judges and the many cutting-edge legal issues it receives from western states leaves it with an inconsistent track record.
And there is no disputing that the court has some hot-button social issues in front of it right now. Just last week, the controversial Arizona immigration law landed at the court.
The court is routinely rebuffed by the Supreme Court and federal lawmakers for decisions viewed as resting outside the mainstream.
Legal experts such as Stanford University law professor Michael Wald said that Walker's opinion was strongly worded, well-reasoned and could be difficult to overturn.
Still, others were not so sanguine about the fate of gay marriage before the 9th Circuit.
They said the political makeup of the three-judge panel will make all the difference, playing even a bigger role than Walker's opinion in shaping the future of gay marriage.
Legal experts said the case could easily end with a politically conservative panel of the 9th Circuit reinstating the marriage ban and the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to get involved.
Even though the court is known as a liberal one, the 27 active judges sitting on the court represent every conceivable point along the political spectrum. Its judges are drawn from the nine western states where its decisions are law.
"Everything depends on which 9th circuit judges get picked randomly to sit on the case," said University of California, Davis law professor Vikram Amar.