COLAGE Files Friend of the Court Brief in CA

Last week, COLAGE and Our Family Coalition filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the California Supreme Court in Strauss v. Horton, the case seeking to invalidate Proposition 8.
A coalition of LGBT legal advocacy groups filed the case, asking the Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8. The case argues that a simple majority of voters cannot legally approve a measure that radically changes the principle of equality guaranteed in the California Constitution-the same principle of equality that the Court relied on in the Marriage Cases when it recognized that all people have the fundamental right to marry, regardless of sexual orientation. Proposition 8 would corrupt this equality guarantee by taking away a fundamental right from a minority group that is supposed to receive the highest level of protection under the law.
The Supreme Court also asked the parties in the case to answer the question of whether Proposition 8, if held to be valid, is retroactive and whether the marriages of the more than 18,000 same-sex couples who married between June and November are valid. COLAGE and Our Family Coalition filed a brief specifically arguing that Proposition 8 is not retroactive, and that the rights of the couples who married and their families must be protected.
The California Supreme Court has not yet set a date for when it will hear oral arguments in the case. For more information, contact Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director.