The following e-mail message was sent by protectmarriage.com on July 3, 2009:

Dear Friends,

I write with great news from San Francisco! Our Proposition 8 Legal Defense Fund has won a key victory in the early rounds of the latest legal assault against traditional marriage.

As you know, on the heels of our victory at the California Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8, a new legal challenge was filed in May, this time in Federal Court, to invalidate the will of the people. Their claim is that Prop 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Notably, they asked the Federal Courts to suspend Prop 8 while this lawsuit works its way through the courts, which would have reopened the floodgates of same-sex marriage licenses in California.

Today, in yet another victory for traditional marriage, Judge Vaughn Walker refused to grant the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction designed to put Prop 8 on hold. The Court’s action supports the will of the people who voted to restore the definition of traditional marriage last November as between a man and a woman, and for that we are grateful.

Marriage between a man and a woman predates government, is recognized as the foundation of the family and has been the will of the people in California and 43 other states every time the people have been allowed to vote on the issue. Today’s ruling maintains the time-honored meaning of marriage. Any argument that the longstanding meaning of marriage that has served humanity for many millenniums somehow violates basic Constitutional rights is preposterous, and we are confident that this early victory in the latest challenge foretells an ultimate victory for marriage in the courts, even if we must go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

ProtectMarriage.com and the Proposition 8 Legal Defense Fund remain the only parties that have consistently fought to preserve Prop 8. Once again, California’s Attorney General, Jerry Brown, abandoned his duty to uphold the will of the people and argued that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. Fortunately, the judge, seeing that officials such as Brown have shirked their duty, also officially granted our Prop 8 official proponents the official status of “intervenors,” meaning we have full legal rights to defend the peoples’ will and the institution of marriage itself in Court.

Rest assured that ProtectMarriage.com and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund will continue to defend the rights of the over seven million Californians who voted to restore marriage as between a man and a woman.

By his ruling, Judge Walker allowed the legal proceedings to progress to a speedy trial that will be based on the merits of the case. We are confident that we will reach ultimate victory, but the road will not be easy.

You may have heard that the plaintiffs in this lawsuit have hired some high-profile attorneys. And it’s true that we are fighting against two of the country’s most prominent lawyers over the issue of traditional marriage, and they have the substantial financial backing of wealthy gay and lesbian advocacy groups. It is their stated intention to bring this issue to the United States Supreme Court, regardless of the will of the people. And they have the monetary firepower to support those efforts.

We have engaged a stellar team of attorneys to argue our case – your case – and today’s victory points to their expertise and uncompromising ability.

Our lead attorney in this case – officially known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger – is Charles Cooper. Mr. Cooper has more than 25 years of legal experience in government and private practice, with several appearances before the United States Supreme Court and scores of other successful cases on both the trial and appellate levels. He was named by The National Law Journal as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Washington, D.C., and is a founding member and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC.

Mr. Cooper clerked for Justice (later Chief Justice) William H. Rehnquist, and joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in 1981. President Reagan appointed Mr. Cooper to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in 1985. Mr. Cooper’s practice is national in scope and is concentrated in the areas of constitutional and civil rights litigation, precisely the kind of expertise we need in this battle, as our opponents try to make this issue about civil rights as opposed to preserving the definition of marriage.

We will continue to vigorously defend traditional marriage, wherever that fight may lead us. But we need your financial support to be victorious.

We do not have an army of taxpayer-funded lawyers as does the Attorney General, who is fighting to invalidate Prop 8. While well-heeled special interest groups finance our opponents, we must rely upon private donations from supporters like you. Our opponents have every intention of bringing this issue before our country’s highest court. Let there be no doubt, if they succeed, this will become the Roe v. Wade for marriage.

We won the fight at the ballot box for traditional marriage last November; we won at the California Supreme Court this past May; and we won today. We won in no small measure because you were there for us to fund the political campaign and to fund our legal defense.

But the battle continues, and we need your help again.

The outcome of Perry v. Schwarzenegger is potentially much broader than the impact it will have in California—it may well define marriage for the entire nation.

Won’t you please help us continue to fund our stellar legal team and court costs so that we can protect and defend traditional marriage by clicking here? We cannot wage this critical fight without your support.

Your contribution of $50, $100, $250, or whatever you can afford, will help ensure our legal team has the resources we need to fight, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thank you for your work, your support and your prayers. Let us thank God that today’s outcome was a victory for the will of the people, the legal process and traditional marriage itself. And let us continue to protect the Divine definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.

Sincerely,

Andy Pugno, General Counsel
ProtectMarriage.com

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Thursday, July 2, 2009

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