[Levin]

The trial for the challenge to Prop. 8, brought by Ted Olson and David Bois (strange bedfellows), begins next week. The trial will be televised -- part of a "pilot" program in the 9th circuit to televise trials. It's actually the product of an impartial district court judge (Vaughan Walker -- a Bush I appointee who has a deep libertarian streak), and a sympathetic Chief Judge of the 9th Circuit (Kozinski, who has publicized his views regarding gay marriage). They want it to be a modern-day "Scopes Trial."

I put the end of the gay marriage debate on the doorstep of the 2012 election -- just about the time this case will work its way to the Supreme Court. Vaughan Walker will rule Prop. 8 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution, the 9th Circuit will uphold that decision (with a panel made up of Kozinski, Reinhardt, and Berzon), and then it will be before the Supreme Court in an election year cycle. We'll all be forced to discuss it, and then the Supreme Court will rule 5-4 (Kennedy writing, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, and Stevens' replacement -- most likely Elena Kagan, a lesbian) that gay marriage is mandated by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as applied to the States. End of story; end of the debate. Public referenda and state senate votes be damned. Youth in revolt. Seniors dying. The end is known from the beginning -- right now.