Recommendation 3: Californians take action to protect marriage rights for all, ABC News projects

California will pass Proposition 3, its path to legalizing marriage for same-sex couples, according to ABC News.

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The road to legalizing marriage for same-sex couples in California has been filled with legal ups and downs since San Francisco issued its first marriage license in 2004.

After those unions were later ruled invalid, the California Supreme Court legalized marriages for same-sex couples in 2008, but only months later voters in the state passed Proposition 8, which defined marriage between a man and a woman in the state constitution.

Two years later, a federal court ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, and then in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized marriage for same-sex couples across the country.

However, the language placed in the California Constitution by Proposition 8 was never removed.

State Senator Scott Wiener cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v., which guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. He worries that just as he overturned the Wade case, he could also reverse the 2015 ruling on marriage for same-sex couples.

“In 2008, voters banned LGBT marriage into the constitution. That language is still there. It’s unenforceable today. It’s invalid because the Supreme Court says people have a fundamental right to marry. But if the court were to co-author Prop. 3, which enshrined the right to marry in the state constitution, State Sen. Scott “If he can reverse his decision on gay marriage, then this invalid language will come back to life,” Wiener said.

That dead phrase in the Constitution says: “Only marriage between one man and one woman is valid or recognized in California.”

The third proposal would remove this statement and replace it with the statement “The right to marry is a fundamental right.”

It’s a simple statement that worries some people.

“Making marriage a fundamental right without any other definition really opens a Pandora’s box and allows legal avenues to be considered for all types of relationships,” says Jonathan Keller, president and CEO of the California Family Council.

“There is no definition of the genetic relationship between people who can marry under Proposition 3, no definition of the age of people who can be married, and I think most importantly, there is no definition of the number of people who can be married.

Keller points to new laws passed this year by Oakland and Berkeley recognizing polyamorous families.

It protects multi-partner families, people in asexual relationships, single-parent and multi-generational families from discrimination in housing and public services.

“This new constitutional amendment will override existing state laws defining marriage. It will override a law that says polygamy is illegal. And if someone has a fundamental right to marry, nothing in this amendment or anywhere else in the constitution says that.” that marriage is limited to two people only.

Keller worries that people in polygamous relationships will file lawsuits to gain statewide legal recognition.

Wiener says the rhetoric is just a scare tactic.

“If the law says you can’t marry your brother, which it is, that doesn’t change that. If the law says you can’t marry an animal, which you can’t, that doesn’t change that.” says Wiener.

Proposition 3 is personal for Oakland residents Stephisha and Viveca Ycoy-Walton.

“We live in fear every day that this could happen to others because we’ve seen it,” said Viveca Ycoy-Walton, who married her partner in 2013 after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit seeking to reinstate a ban on gay marriage in California, thus restoring the right to same-sex marriage in the state. is being established.

“This may seem like a formality. But that formality is the difference between someone’s happy ending or disappointment and rejection,” Viveca says.

The couple is campaigning for Proposition 3 to ensure that everyone’s right to marriage is enshrined in the state constitution.

“Formalities are important. If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t still be there. And if it didn’t matter, we wouldn’t have to fight to have it removed,” says Stephisha Ycoy-Walton.

Being legally married allowed both their names to be on their son’s birth certificate, which helped him feel at ease when he was teased at school.

“Someone told me I was adopted because I had two moms,” said Karter Ycoy-Walton, confused by the other kids’ teasing.

It was comforting and reassuring to see her birth certificate with both her mothers’ names on it.