June 17: Same-Sex Marriage in California

A rainbow-striped prayer shawl was set up as a khupe near the steps of City Hall in San Francisco as hundreds of same-sex couples, including many Jews, became legally married on this date in 2008. It was the first day on which the city licensed same-sex unions, following a California Supreme Court decision that declared the non-recognition of gay marriage to be unconstitutional. Two of the fourteen couples in that Supreme Court case were interfaith Jewish couples. (To read about gay and lesbian rabbis who have married, click here.) Several of the marrying couples in San Francisco asked friends to make contributions, in lieu of wedding gifts, to the campaign to defeat Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage referendum. Prop. 8 was opposed by numerous Jewish organizations, and polls showed Jews to be more united in their opposition than any other ethnic or religious group, but it passed in November, 2008, effectively ending gay marriage in California. In 2012, however, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found Prop. 8 unconstitutional -- but stayed its own ruling, preventing the legal recognition of gay marriages in California until the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the matter.

“We already sanctified our union through the eyes of our religious tradition. It makes me realize the irony that in some of our communities, Judaism was ahead of this country’s legal system by decades.” —Rabbi Mychal Copeland