What really happened is that the appellate court sifted through a lot of legalese and declared that Prop 8, the California ballot initiative which passed in 2008 declaring that same-sex partners cannot marry, is unconstitutional due to the fact that the law denies them only the use of the word "marriage" and nothing else. But hey, a win's a win, right?
From the Court decision:
By emphasizing Proposition 8’s limited effect, we do not mean to minimize the harm that this change in the law caused same-sex couples and their families. To the contrary, we emphasize the extraordinary significance of the official designation of ‘marriage.’ That designation is important because ‘marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couples desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not.
It is enough to say that Proposition 8 operates with no apparent purpose but to impose on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majority’s private disapproval of them and their relationships, by taking away from them the official designation of ‘marriage,’ with its societally recognized status. Proposition 8 therefore violates the Equal Protection Clause.
What this really teaches us, is that on the questions of basic human rights, it should never be an issue of "majority rules." The rights of our fellow human beings should never be up for a vote.
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