What Are You Going to Do Justice George?

Cheryl Miller reports on the Recorder:

Legal groups and three city attorneys asked the California Supreme Court on Wednesday to invalidate Proposition 8, arguing that the voter-approved ban on gay marriage is a constitutional revision that should have been processed through the Legislature, not the ballot box.

The lawsuit throws the hot-potato issue of same-sex unions back to the high court just six months after four justices infuriated social conservatives by declaring that marriage rights extend equally to both gay and straight couples. And it snares Chief Justice Ronald George, author of the majority opinion in In re Marriage Cases, in a political vise as his scheduled 2010 retention election approaches.

“It’s the proverbial crocodile in the bathtub,” said Gerald Uelmen, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. “And that’s what initiative politics frequently do in California. They put the court in the position of striking down measures that have a popular majority, and very often the proponents of the initiatives that are struck down come after the courts in the next election.”