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of San Francisco) on the grounds that Newsom had exceeded his authority as mayor
in issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples.
Although short-lived, Newsom’s initiative had helped place same-sex marriage more
firmly on the agenda in the state (Kendell, 2007). Legislative bills in 2005 and 2007
to legalise same-sex marriage passed both houses of the California Legislature,
though Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both bills, citing the Proposition 22
referendum of March 2000 that had defined marriage as exclusively between one
man and one woman, as an expression of public opinion on the matter. Yet in turn,
Proposition 22 was struck down by the California Supreme Court in May 2008, on the
grounds that it had violated the equal protection clauses of the State Constitution
and had failed to demonstrate an appropriate public interest in doing so. Once
again, the California Supreme Court ruling highlights the social importance of
marriage over other forms of recognition:
by drawing a distinction between the name assigned to the family
relationship available to opposite-sex couples and the name assigned to the
family relationship available to same-sex couples, and by reserving the
historic and highly respected designation of ‘marriage’ exclusively to
opposite-sex couples while offering same-sex couples only the new and
unfamiliar designation of domestic partnership- pose a serious risk of
denying the official family relationship of same-sex couples the equal dignity
and respect that is a core element of the constitutional right to marry.
(findlaw.com, 2012b (online))
The Re: Marriage Cases ruling came into effect on 16 th June 2008 and appeared to
herald a breakthrough in the struggle for same-sex marriage in California. However,
the backlash was both swift and decisive, with social and religious conservatives
embarking on a campaign to repeal same-sex marriage rights. The Proposition 8
referendum of November 2008 re-established the legal definition of marriage in
California as a union of one man and one woman. However, during the 143 days
during which it was possible for same-sex couples to marry, over 18,000 couples did
so, and in Strauss v. Horton, the California Supreme Court confirmed the validity of
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