The two attorneys behind the federal case to overturn California's Proposition 8 have turned down legal help from the city of San Francisco, the ACLU, and two gay legal organizations.
Attorneys David Boies and Theodore Olson are petitioning U.S. district court judge Vaughn Walker to prevent intervention in the case by city officials and three legal groups -- Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights -- according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Olson and Boies stated that adding more parties to the legal battle would delay the process, which their opponents, the Alliance Defense Fund, have also argued.
Boies and Olson also filed to bar the Campaign for California Families from joining the opposing legal team because it has "failed to offer any argument that differs from those raised" by parties already involved in the lawsuit, according to The Washington Post.
The groups filed a motion to intervene in the case in July because they wanted more plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit, aside from the two couples represented.
While the Alliance Defense Fund's attorneys wrote on Friday that the case should be decided without a trial, Boies and Olson argued that the case should go to trial before a judge, and without a jury, by the year's end.
The city of San Francisco was at the epicenter of the marriage equality debate when, in 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered that marriage licenses be issued to gay and lesbian couples. The surge in marriages launched a four-year legal battle, which led to the California supreme court's 2008 ruling that marriage rights must be extended to same-sex couples, and then the repeal of that ruling in the November 2008 election.
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