Religious, Civil Rights, Child Advocacy Groups File Briefs Supporting Gay Marriage

Thirty friend-of-the-court briefs were submitted to the California Supreme Court on Wednesday on behalf of more than 90 organizations supporting same-sex couples challenging the state's ban on gay marriage. The briefs represent groups as diverse as the California Council of Churches, the California District of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The Supreme Court will hear legal arguments in the lawsuit late this year or early in 2008.
"We are not treating all Californians equally if some can marry and others cannot," said Alice Huffman, President of the California Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "The law should protect all people equally, and all Californians should have the choice to marry," she said.

The California NAACP brief asks the Supreme Court to apply the Court's 1948 decision striking down laws banning interracial marriage to this current case.

Longtime civil rights advocate Jon B. Eisenberg authored the NAACP's brief. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund also filed an amicus brief supporting same-sex couples, as did the Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, in a brief comparing the arguments used in the past to defend laws barring interracial marriage with current arguments used to oppose marriage by same-sex couples.

In another brief, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Black Justice Coalition, and numerous other civil rights organizations argued that California courts should subject laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation to the strictest level of constitutional review.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Equal Justice Society also submitted briefs urging the Court to strike down discriminatory marriage laws.

More than 60 Asian Pacific Islander groups, including the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, joined an additional brief describing the long history of discrimination against API communities with regard to marriage in California.

Briefs supporting the freedom to marry for same-sex couples were also filed by the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Long Beach, Oakland, as well as 14 other cities and counties.

The Rev. Neil Thomas, Chair of California Faith for Equality, said the church groups' brief "bears witness to our highest religious values, honoring love, equality and commitment in human relations." "We are telling the California Supreme Court that many religious leaders and congregations in California and across the country support equality of all persons."

Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union represent 15 same-sex couples and California LGBT rights group Equality California in fighting the state ban on gay marriage. The city of San Francisco also is a party in the case.

The attorneys argue that California state law barring same-sex couples from marriage discriminates based on sexual orientation and sex and violates the fundamental right to marry. The arguments cite the California Constitution's guarantees of privacy, intimate association, and due process.

In addition to the court case, the California legislature has passed a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry. The legislation is now sitting on the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who has said he will veto it.