Dear Friend and Reader,
After millions of dollars in campaign contributions, days of protests and miles of writing, the California Supreme Court will hear three arguments to overturn Proposition 8 and return the freedom to marry to same-sex couples. The hearing will take place this Thursday, March 5, from 9 am to 12 pm PT.
For those of you who are jumping in in the middle, California’s fight for marriage equality has been in the courts and on the ballot since 2000. That was the year George Bush was elected for the first time, the Uniting American Families Act was first introduced to the House of Representatives and a conservative group put Prop 22 on the California ballot.
Proposition 22 took the loophole out of California’s marriage law on March 7, 2000. Before then, marriage was defined within the state as “between a man and a woman,” but included a clause that recognized all legal marriages performed in other states. In other words, it opened up the possibility to get same-sex married somewhere else, and have it recognized in California. (New York State currently has a provision like that, thanks to Gov. Paterson.)
The proposition was approved by an obvious majority:В 61.4% in favor and 38.6% against. Since then, marriage equality advocates worked to get the proposition overturned.