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   XPost: alt.politics.homosexuality   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   Fifteen years ago, 52% of California voters approved Proposition 8, a ban   
   on same-sex marriage. Federal courts overturned the ban five years later   
   and the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage   
   in 2015, but now the state’s voters will decide whether to remove Prop. 8   
   from the books.   
      
   ACA5 by Assembly Member Evan Low, D-Sunnyvale, a proposed state   
   constitutional amendment to repeal Prop. 8, breezed through the state   
   Senate Thursday on a 31-0 vote and will be placed on the November 2024   
   ballot. Thirty Democrats voted for it along with Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa   
   Clarita (Los Angeles County). The Senate’s seven other Republicans   
   abstained or were absent.   
      
   “This proposed constitutional amendment removes this scar from the   
   California Constitution & affirms all Californians’ fundamental right to   
   marry,” Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, a coauthor of ACA5, declared   
   on Twitter after the vote.   
      
   The ballot measure “gives us an opportunity to reflect the values of   
   everyday Californians and lead with love,” Low told The Chronicle after   
   introducing the measure in February.   
      
   Same-sex marriage in California was first prohibited by state lawmakers in   
   1977, a ban affirmed by the voters in a 2000 ballot initiative. The state   
   Supreme Court overturned the ban in a 4-3 ruling in May 2008, but it was   
   reinstated six months later by voter approval of Prop. 8, a state   
   constitutional amendment.   
      
   Gay-rights advocates challenged Prop. 8 in federal court, and after a   
   trial in San Francisco, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker declared   
   the measure unconstitutional in 2010. The Supreme Court upheld his ruling   
   in 2013 after state officials declined to appeal it, and ruled 5-4 two   
   years later that LGBTQ people nationwide had a constitutional right to   
   marry the partner of their choice, overturning marriage restrictions in 13   
   states.   
      
   The rulings mean Prop. 8 cannot be enforced. But it remains in the   
   California Constitution, and LGBTQ advocates fear it could become law   
   again if the increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court decides to   
   reconsider the issue — as Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a   
   concurrence to last year’s ruling repealing the constitutional right to   
   abortion that the court had declared 49 years earlier.   
      
   Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BobEgelko   
      
   https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/prop-8-removal-18199179.php   
      
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