Marriage equality legal precedents

In this new video from the American Foundation for Equal Rights, Matt Baume lays out the history of US Supreme Court rulings, 14 in all, stretching back 125 years. All of them—all of them—support AFER’s arguments that California’s anti-gay Proposition 8 is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

The basis of the numerous state laws and state constitutional amendments banning loving same-gender couples from marrying is similar: Unreasonable restrictions on what is a fundamental human right. No US state has any legitimate reason to prevent loving same-gender couples from marrying and, ultimately, all those laws and amendments must be repealed or struck down.

This isn’t the case that the US Supreme Court will use to take a broad stand for fundamental human rights and freedom nationally. Instead, they’ll stick to the narrow issues of that particular case. But whatever it does, I’m confident that marriage equality will soon return to California. As it should.