California Laws on Gay Marriage
- In February 2004, the city of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. Several cases were brought and a series of hearings were held before the California Supreme Court. On August 12, 2004, the Court ruled that the City and County of San Francisco did not have the authority to authorize same-sex marriage and nullified the marriages that had already been performed. The Court did not, at that time, rule on the constitutionality of gay marriage.
- In November 2006, a number of parties, with the support of Attorney General Bill Lockyer, petitioned the Supreme Court of California to a half dozen previous decisions dealing with same-sex marriage. After extensive deliberation, on May 15, 2008 the Court voted 4 to 3 to strike down the one-man, one-woman marriage law that had been passed in California in 1977, citing a 1948 ruling which had struck down a state ban on interracial marriage.
- On November 4, 2008, voters in California passed Proposition 8, the Marriage Recognition and Family Protection Act, which altered the State Constitution to ban gay marriage. The law was signed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on October 12, 2009; however, three different legal challenges to the law were filed on November 5, 2008 one day after it's passage.
- The current situation is that gay marriage laws in California are in a state of flux with a number of cases before the courts. Current California Governor Jerry Brown supports legal same-sex marriages, and Equality California, a gay rights group, has announced plans to try and overturn Proposition 8 in the 2012 election. More than 4,000 same-sex marriages that have been carried out in California also remain in legal limbo.
