After a longer-than-anticipated delay, the California Supreme Court will issue its opinion in the Proposition 8 challenge on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time. There are two basic questions before the court:
(1) Is Prop 8 a valid “amendment” of the state constitution or an invalid “revision”?
(2) If Prop 8 is valid, and thus marriage is now limited under the state constitution to one man and one woman, what is the status of the thousands of California same-sex marriages entered between June and November 2008?
The conventional wisdom has been that the court will uphold Prop 8 but will also declare that the interim same-sex marriages in the state are valid.