The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21,1996. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marriage to the union of one man and one woman,and it further allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states.
Proposition 22 was a law enacted by California voters in March 2000 stating that marriage was between one man and one woman. In November 2008,Proposition 8 was also passed by voters,again only allowing marriage between one man and one woman. The Act was proposed by means of the initiative process. It was authored by state Senator William "Pete" Knight and is known informally as the Knight initiative. Voters adopted the measure on March 7,2000,with 61% in favor to 39% against. The margin of victory surprised many,since a Field Poll immediately prior to the election estimated support at 53%,with 40% against and 7% undecided.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in California since June 28,2013. The State of California first issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples from June 16,2008 to November 5,2008,a period of approximately 4 months,2 weeks and 6 days,as a result of the Supreme Court of California finding in the case of In re Marriage Cases that barring same-sex couples from marriage violated the Constitution of California. The issuance of such licenses was halted from November 5,2008 through June 27,2013 due to the passage of Proposition 8—a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages. The granting of same-sex marriages recommenced following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry,which restored the effect of a federal district court ruling that overturned Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.
William James Ware is a retired United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Norman Randy Smith is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He lives and maintains chambers in Pocatello,Idaho.
In re Marriage Cases,43 Cal. 4th 757 was a California Supreme Court case where the court held that laws treating classes of persons differently based on sexual orientation should be subject to strict judicial scrutiny,and that an existing statute and initiative measure limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the rights of same-sex couples under the California Constitution and may not be used to preclude them from marrying.
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.
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".
Dennis Herrera is an American attorney,currently serving as Public Utilities Commission general manager for San Francisco. Herrera was previously City Attorney of San Francisco,known for his longtime legal advocacy for same-sex marriage in California,including the In re Marriage Cases,43 Cal.4th 757 (2008),and Hollingsworth v. Perry,570. U.S. (2013),as well as the legal fight against Proposition 8. He was first elected as City Attorney in 2001,and re-elected without opposition in 2005,2009,2013,2015 and 2019. He ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of San Francisco in the 2011 election,finishing third in the City's ranked-choice voting system. After his long-standing position as City Attorney,he was unanimously approved in 2021 to become the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
Jennifer Lynne Burcham Coffman is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.
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 American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) was a nonprofit organization active in the United States from 2009 through 2015. The organization was established to support the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry,a federal lawsuit challenging California's Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. AFER retained former United States Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and David Boies to lead the legal team representing the plaintiffs challenging Proposition 8.
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 California 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.
The history of LGBT residents in California,which includes centuries prior to the 20th,has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state,pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays,lesbians,bisexuals,and transgender people.
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.
The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is a conservative legal defense organization based in California. The group,founded by attorney Brad W. Dacus,describes itself as focusing on representation relating to "...religious freedom,parental rights,and other civil liberties." PJI was declared an anti-LGBT hate group in 2014 by the Southern Poverty Law Center due to the group's long history of anti-LGBT rhetoric through its founder. The group also represents workers opposed to their employers' vaccine mandates.
8 is a 2011 American play that portrays the closing arguments of Perry v. Schwarzenegger,a federal trial that led to the overturn of Proposition 8,an amendment banning same-sex marriages in California. It was created by Dustin Lance Black in light of the court's denial of a motion to release a video recording of the trial and to give the public a true account of what transpired in the courtroom.
This article contains a timeline of significant events regarding same-sex marriage in the United States. On June 26,2015,the landmark US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges effectively ended restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States.
SaveCalifornia.com is an American conservative activist group 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.
In the United States,the history of same-sex marriage dates from the early 1940s,when the first lawsuits seeking legal recognition of same-sex relationships brought the question of civil marriage rights and benefits for same-sex couples to public attention though they proved unsuccessful. However marriage wasn't a request for the LGBTQ movement until the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Washington (1987). The subject became increasingly prominent in U.S. politics following the 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court decision in Baehr v. Miike that suggested the possibility that the state's prohibition might be unconstitutional. That decision was met by actions at both the federal and state level to restrict marriage to male-female couples,notably the enactment at the federal level of the Defense of Marriage Act.
