California high court rules same-sex marriage ban violates state constitution News
California high court rules same-sex marriage ban violates state constitution

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of California [official website] Thursday overturned [opinion, PDF] a state ban on same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive], ruling 4-3 in In re Marriage Cases [case materials] that the ban violated protections on the right to "form a family relationship" enshrined in the California Constitution [text]. Rights groups said that the decision could lead to California becoming the second state after Massachusetts [JURIST report] to legalize same-sex marriage, but religious and conservative organizations are currently pushing to include a measure on the November ballot to write a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution.

The lawsuits stemmed from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2004 decision to issue marriage licenses to 4,000 same-sex couples [JURIST report]. In 2006, the state attorney general requested [JURIST report] that the Court review an intermediate appellate court's decision to uphold [JURIST report] the same-sex marriage ban. AP has more. The San Francisco Chronicle has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

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