The long journey toward the United States Supreme Court making a final ruling on the legality of Proposition 8 just got longer. The decision to try the 2008 law that made gay marriage in California illegal was supposed to be determined last Friday, but according to a recent Los Angeles Times article, the decision has been pushed back until further notice. The court is not expected to make a statement until Friday at the earliest.

Dave Peters, a professor of political science at Biola, said those on the Supreme Court have simply not yet decided whether or not to bring Proposition 8 to trial.

“The justices have not chosen to adjudicate the issue,” Peters said. “Sometimes when there is a lot of conflict, they wait to see which way the wind is blowing. … The justices read the newspapers, too.”

Peters noted that out of the approximately 7,000 cases proposed to the Supreme Court every year, only about 90 are actually put through the legal process. The lack of a verdict in this case could be largely due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, he said.

“Why haven’t they made a decision on this? This is a sticky wicket,” he said. “This is something that really inspires a lot of passion and animosity between people. … I would suspect that it will be decided as it grows more controversial.”

"Homosexuality is a very real part of human experience."

If Proposition 8 is overturned, gay marriage will become legal for the state of California. The U.S. Supreme Court became involved after several lawsuits filed by gay rights supporters pushed the law to the California supreme court in San Francisco, where it was upheld.

The matter of coming to a conclusion, according to Gary Strauss, a professor of human sexuality, appears to depend not on if the court will make a ruling, but when.

“The attitude of those that have been waiting for the announcement, only to learn that the announcement will not be made, was, ‘Well, sooner or later it will come before the Supreme Court,’” he said.

Strauss said he would not be surprised if the people of California responded positively to a verdict disfavoring Proposition 8, despite the 2008 voting outcome.

“There’s a movement in our society toward acceptance of gay relationships and very specifically gay marriage,” he said. "Homosexuality is a very real part of human experience.”

Possible further separation between church and state

Although he did not make any predictions about how the Supreme Court will vote on the issue, Peters said he thinks the gay marriage question will eventually result in a non-marriage answer.

“I believe that we are ultimately headed for a distinction between marriage [under the church] … and civil unions that will be under government,” Peters said. “I think in time, irrespective of what the law says as far as us passing an initiative in California, it will be preempted by the will of the people.”

Since Proposition 8’s fate will be decided by the Supreme Court, the verdict will roll over into other states should the same issue crop up there because of the court’s national jurisdiction, according to Peters. Currently, nine states have legalized gay marriage, most recently Washington and Massachusetts in November’s election. However, Peters added, just because the Supreme Court rules one way does not mean that law is set in stone.

“If the Supreme Court of the United States determines [Proposition 8] is … unconstitutional, all the other states that have it would deem it unconstitutional,” he said. “[However], if you do not like the decision of the Supreme Court, it can still be changed. We can change the constitution.”