Joan Hollinger Comments on Constitutionality of Prop 8

-Bay Area Reporter, January 21, 2010 by Matthew S. Bajko
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=4492

“Under federal law there is no precedent for finding sexual orientation deserves any special protection,” said University of California at Berkeley Law School Professor Joan Hollinger, who specializes in family law and has been following the Prop 8 trial in court.

-Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2010 by Maura Dolan
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/24/local/la-me-prop8-trial24-2010jan24

“I have never seen this level of quality in direct and redirect…” said Hollinger, a family law expert who has attended much of the trial. “But that doesn’t necessarily translate into a legal and constitutional victory by any means.”

-San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 2010 by Bob Egelko
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/29/MNO21BP3AO.DTL&type=printable

But Hollinger said Thursday that opposition to interracial marriage had faded outside the South by 1967, after a large-scale federal commitment to civil rights. By contrast, she said, same-sex marriage still faces “opposition all over the place.” “I’m not optimistic about the Supreme Court on this,” she said.

-SF Weekly, January 29, 2010 by Joe Eskenazi
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/01/gay-friendly_legal_scholars_hi.php

“If the issue is framed as whether, under the federal Constitution, there is a fundamental right to marry, [then] any exclusion from enjoying this fundamental right is subject to at least a higher level of scrutiny,” says Hollinger. “The state has to have substantial reason to justify the exclusion. If that’s the way it’s framed, the plaintiffs, it seems to me, are going to prevail. Easily.”