California Supreme Court Recognizes Same-Sex Marriage

The Supreme Court of California overturned a ban on gay marriage last Thursday on a 4-3 vote.

This all began when Proposition 22 was placed on the ballot in 2000 in a voter referendum that banned same-sex marriage. The proposition becomes active in the next month.

The road to the recent ruling began with San Francisco’s highly publicized same-sex weddings in 2004.

The California Supreme Court ordered the city to stop issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

Afterward, the state high court invalidated the licenses, saying the city should have waited for a judicial ruling before acting.

Then two-dozen gay and lesbian couples, Equality California and another gay rights group brought cases to the city of San Francisco in March 2004.

Many conservative sponsors have been part of the fight such as the Liberty Counsel and National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

The Liberty Counsel issued a disapproving statement: “This ruling will unite the people of California and will propel their efforts to amend the state constitution. In the meantime, we will ask the Court to issue a stay on its decision until November when the voters have a right to decide the fate of marriage.”

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.

The Executive Director of NOM, Brian Brown, was ready for this type of result, “The important point about all this is before the decision was ever made we already gathered the signatures necessary to have a Constitutional Amendment put on the ballot in November defining union between man and a woman.”

There’s a pending verification by the secretary of state’s office for a constitutional amendment initiative specifying that marriage is only between a man and a woman after its sponsors said they had gathered enough signatures to place it on the statewide ballot.

“In order to protect California, we need a state Constitution Amendment. 27 States have passed Constitution amendments. The vote in California will have tremendous repercussions throughout the country,” Brown continues, “The Court is not going to have the last say on this, we expect the state to certify the signatures within the next few weeks, and then once the state certifies the signatures, we’re on the ballot for November.”

If the court certifies the signatures, the voters in California will have a chance to put a definition of marriage into the Constitution, which they’ve already approved by over 61% percent in the year 2000.

If the people of California vote for the amendment, it will be the final say because it cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court due to federal courts not having jurisdiction over state laws.

Santiago Leon is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.