by Dan Levine

Try as they might, lawyers from one anti-gay rights organization just can’t get any love from judges in California. After being barred from intervening in the federal challenge to Proposition 8, the Campaign for California Families tried their luck Wednesday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But a conservative panel sitting at Stanford Law School didn’t appear any more likely to let them into the case.

Matthew Staver, whose advocacy group Liberty Counsel represents the campaign, repeated arguments previously made to Northern District of California Chief Judge Vaughn Walker: that the official Prop 8 forces weren’t adequately litigating the case and had stipulated away far too many facts.

Ninth Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer had a hard time understanding how Staver’s goals conflict with those already advanced by the Yes on 8 campaign, which Walker allowed to be the primary defendant in the case. “How is your, your interest — your particular interest — affected?” she asked Staver.

If Prop 8 is upheld on some narrow ground, the stipulated facts still make it harder to prevent homosexuals from becoming a suspect class, Staver said. The Yes on 8 forces won’t fight the idea that homosexuality is immutable, he said.

Judge M. Margaret McKeown pounced on this point, and began to read from one of the Yes on 8 filings. “‘We will dispute plaintiffs’ claim that homosexuality is immutable,'” McKeown intoned, whereupon Rymer started shaking her head.

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