California has always been progressive when it comes to gay rights, especially considering San Francisco could be described as the unofficial gay capital of the United States. It was the second state in the nation to legalize gay marriage before Prop 8. Currently gay marriage is legal in the state, but that wasn't without some upset in the beginning.
California first began issuing gay marriage licences in February of 2004. Thousands of marriages licenses were granted to same sex couples in California and couples even traveled from other states to marry as well. Soon after, there was a large push back from those opposing gay marriage and the Supreme Court declared those marriages void due to the state law.
There was a big backlash from LGBT supporters, left many newly wed gay couples unsure of their marriages. Lawsuits were filed against the state in response to Proposition 22, which were known as the In re Marriage Cases. These cases argued that same sex couples were treated differently on the basis of sexual orientation and denied civil rights, which was not in accordance with the Equal Protections Clause of the California State Constitution.
The outcome of these cases resulted in the state reinstating the marriages done during that time; however, following these cases there was a petition to prevent any further gay marriages during that time called Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and only recognizing marriages between a man and a woman. During the years of November 2008 and June 2013, no new gay marriage licences were granted.
This created a large divide within the state between conservatives and liberals, with the bill passing at 52 percent for those in opposition, a little over half of the state was for gay marriage. A large amount of money was funneled into the passing of the bill from conservatives and the religious right, and even monetary support from outside of the state.There were protests, pickets, candlelight vigils and a lot of violence that resulted from the passing of the bill, especially against those entities that voted Yes on Prop 8. the main sponsor of the bill was a group called Protectmarriage.com.
According to the California General Attorney Website, Proposition 8 consisted of two sections.
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act."
Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read: Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
A series of hearings were held around the main court case, Perry, v. Schwarzenager, where both sides were able to argue their case as to whether the state should continue to deny same sex couples the right to marry. There were thousands of protesters that took to the steps of the Supreme Court to fight against the bill.