Historic Victory in Prop 8 Case

New York City Mayor Bloomberg Stands Up for Religious Freedom

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Historic Victory in Prop 8 Case is a Call to Action

This week's landmark decision in the Prop 8 case is a huge victory for LGBT Americans. In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled that Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that excluded same-sex couples from marriage in the state, is unconstitutional.

The ruling holds for the first time that the due process clause of the United States Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the freedom to marry and that denying same-sex couples this freedom also violates the equal protection clause.

We don't yet know what the impact of this historic ruling will be, as it will first go up on appeal to the 9th Circuit -- and is likely to eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. But what we do know is that our work on relationship recognition is by no means done. In fact, in order to give this case the best possible chance of success as it moves through the appeals process, we need to show that America is ready for same-sex couples to marry by continuing to seek marriage and other relationship protections in states across the country.

The ACLU is working with same-sex couples throughout the country to secure the freedom to marry by working to pass marriage bills in New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Maine -- and by seeking domestic partnership recognition in Montana, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico and Alaska.

ENDS

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