In a brief filed Thursday before the
Supreme Court, opponents of California's Proposition 8 argued for a
constitutional right to marry for gay and lesbian couples.
Proposition 8 is the 2008
voter-approved constitutional amendment which put an end to the
weddings of gay couples taking place in the state after the
California Supreme Court struck down the state's law excluding gay
couples from marriage.
The Supreme Court will next month hear
a constitutional challenge to the law brought by two gay couples who
wish to marry but cannot because of Proposition 8.
The case, Perry v. Hollingsworth,
is being argued by lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies.
“Because of their sexual orientation
– a characteristic with which they were born and which they cannot
change – plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of gay men and
lesbians in California and across the country are being excluded from
one of life's most precious relationships …,” Olson and Boies
write in a brief filed in the case on Thursday. “This badge of
inferiority, separateness, and inequality must be extinguished. When
it is, America will be closer to fulfilling the aspirations of all
its citizens.”
“The unmistakable purpose and effect
of Proposition 8 is to stigmatize gay men and lesbians – and them
alone – and enshrine in California's Constitution that they are
'unequal to everyone else.'”
(Read
the entire brief at AFER.org's website.)
Oral arguments in the case will heard
on March 26 and the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling
in June.