Travis Landon Barker is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the rock band Blink-182. He has also performed as a frequent collaborator with hip hop artists, is a member of the rap rock group Transplants, cofounded the rock band +44, and joined Box Car Racer, Antemasque and Goldfinger. Barker was a frequent collaborator with the late DJ AM, and together they formed TRV$DJAM. Due to his fame, Rolling Stone referred to him as "punk's first superstar drummer" as well as one of the 100 greatest drummers of all time.
Shanna Lynn Moakler is an American model, actress, and reality television star. She was the winner of the Miss New York USA pageant in 1995 and was the first runner-up at Miss USA 1995. After winner Chelsi Smith won the Miss Universe 1995 pageant, Moakler succeeded her as Miss USA. Moakler began modeling at age 15. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in December 2001.
Jordan Palmer is an American social activist, Kentucky politician, civil rights activist, entrepreneur, and the founder of the Kentucky Equality Federation. Palmer is from Hazard, Kentucky and is credited for having Kentucky Constitutional Amendment 1, being struck down by a Kentucky judge, pushing the first hate crime convictions under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and holding the first equality protests against a sitting governor and members of the Kentucky House of Representatives.
Proposition 2 was a referendum for a state constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by the Texas legislature and approved by the voters at the November 8, 2005 general election. The measure added a new provision to the Texas Constitution, Article 1, Section 32, which provides that "Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman", and "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage." Texas thus became the nineteenth US state to adopt constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. It was the most populous state to adopt a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage until California passed its ban in November 2008.
Adam Bouska is an American fashion photographer who runs a photography studio based out of West Hollywood, California. Known for pictures of male models in particular, he is considered a rising 'superstar photographer' in the gay community. Bouska is most recognized for co-creation of the internationally recognized NOH8 Campaign.
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in court. The proposition was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in advance of the California Supreme Court's May 2008 appeal ruling, In re Marriage Cases, which followed the short-lived 2004 same-sex weddings controversy and found the previous ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in 2010, although the court decision did not go into effect until June 26, 2013, following the conclusion of proponents' appeals.
Join the Impact was an American LGBT political organization started in reaction to the passage of Proposition 8 in California which rapidly developed into a national coalition of local LGBT rights groups. The website for the group was established November 7, 2008, after founders Amy Balliett and Willow Witte decided to utilize a website to try to galvanize attention for the cause. The level of success the two women had orchestrating a nationwide protest only a week later may have benefited from the recent historical success the Obama campaign had with the medium.
Protests against Proposition 8 supporters in California took place starting in November 2008. These included prominent protests against the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which supported California's Proposition 8. The proposition was a voter referendum that amended the state constitution to recognize marriage only as being between one man and one woman, thus banning same-sex marriage, which was legal in the state following a May 2008 California Supreme Court case.
Strauss v. Horton, 46 Cal. 4th 364, 93 Cal. Rptr. 3d 591, 207 P.3d 48 (2009), was a decision of the Supreme Court of California, the state's highest court. It resulted from lawsuits that challenged the voters' adoption of Proposition 8 on November 4, 2008, which amended the Constitution of California to outlaw same-sex marriage. Several gay couples and governmental entities filed the lawsuits in California state trial courts. The Supreme Court of California agreed to hear appeals in three of the cases and consolidated them so they would be considered and decided. The supreme court heard oral argument in the cases in San Francisco on March 5, 2009. Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar stated that the cases will set precedent in California because "no previous case had presented the question of whether [a ballot] initiative could be used to take away fundamental rights".
Pauley Perrette is an American retired actress and singer. She played Abby Sciuto in the television series NCIS from 2003 to 2018.
Courage California is a state-based 501(c)(4) progressive grassroots advocacy organization founded in 2005 and based in California. The organization claims an online grassroots activism network of over 1 million members. The group works on a variety of progressive causes including LGBT equality, gun control and healthcare reform, including support of single-payer health care. The group has taken a role in various California statewide ballot measures, including supporting Proposition 30 and opposing Proposition 32 in 2012.
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an American non-profit political organization established to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. It was formed in 2007 specifically to pass California Proposition 8, a state prohibition of same-sex marriage. The group has opposed civil union legislation and gay adoption, and has fought against allowing transgender individuals to use bathrooms that accord with their gender identity. Brian S. Brown has served as the group's president since 2010.
The Miss USA 2009 controversy centered on Miss California USA 2009 Carrie Prejean's answer to a question regarding same-sex marriage. On April 19, 2009, during the ceremony of Miss USA 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada, the five finalists were all asked about political issues such as how to fight domestic violence, whether to use taxpayer money to bail out corporations, whether to give immigrants access to health care, and whether or not the United States should donate money to the government of Afghanistan to fund its elections. Kenya Moore, Miss USA 1993, has stated that the questions were "far too political and it's divisive as well".
Queer Liberaction (QL) is a Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas-based grassroots organization advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The group was founded in November 2008 following the international attention surrounding California's Proposition 8, which changed that state's Constitution to deny marriage rights to any LGBT couples who are not defined as "a man and a woman", passed by a slight majority. The organization is a proponent of same-sex marriage rights for LGBT couples, considering civil unions and domestic partnerships as less than full equality.
Hollingsworth v. Perry was a series of United States federal court cases that re-legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found that banning same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the law. This decision overturned ballot initiative Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriage. After the State of California refused to defend Proposition 8, the official sponsors of Proposition 8 intervened and appealed to the Supreme Court. The case was litigated during the governorships of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, and was thus known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Perry v. Brown, respectively. As Hollingsworth v. Perry, it eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which held that, in line with prior precedent, the official sponsors of a ballot initiative measure did not have Article III standing to appeal an adverse federal court ruling when the state refused to do so.
Fred S. Karger is an American political consultant, gay rights activist and watchdog, and former actor. His unsuccessful candidacy for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election made him the first openly gay presidential candidate in a major political party in American history. Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns and served as a senior consultant to the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
ProtectMarriage.com was a collection of conservative and religious American political activist groups aligned in opposition to same-sex marriage. The coalition's stated goal is to "defend and restore the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman." Beginning in 2001 as Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund holding the domain name protectmarriage.com, the organization reformed in 2005 as a coalition to sponsor California Proposition 8, called the California Marriage Protection Act, and was successful in placing it on the ballot in 2008. Proposition 8 amended the California Constitution, putting a halt to same-sex marriages in California for nearly two years until the proposition was overturned as unconstitutional. While it was in effect, ProtectMarriage.com defended the amendment in a series of legal challenges. Ron Prentice is the executive director.
Chad Hunter Griffin is an American political strategist best known for his work advocating for LGBT rights in the United States.
SaveCalifornia.com is a United States nonprofit organization founded in 1999 by Randy Thomasson as part of Campaign for Children and Families (CCF). The organization is active in influencing public policy on various social issues, and has opposed California's FAIR Education Act.
