California CPA and APA on Gay Marriage

From the legal brief filed against California's gay marriage ban attempts:

In Re Marriage Cases concludes that the law restricting the use of the term "marriage" did indeed violate both (1) the state constitutional right to marry and (2) the state constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws. The court held that the constitutional right to marry, which has long been recognized by California court decisions, is not limited to opposite-sex couples, despite the long tradition of allowing only such couples to marry. Looking at the substantive grounds for protecting marriage because of its importance to society and the individual, the court concluded that those reasons apply with equal force to same-sex couples as to opposite-sex couples, and therefore the constitutional right to marry covers the former as well as the latter. The court also concluded that denying the label "marriage" to same-sex unions while extending that label to opposite-sex unions impairs the same-sex couples' fundamental right to marry, because it denigrates their unions as being of lesser value, despite the existence of the same substantive rights.

Turning to equal protection, the court found that limiting "marriage" to opposite-sex couples discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. In an important ruling of first impression, the court found that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is subject to the high hurdle of "strict judicial scrutiny" under the California constitution, under which the state must establish that the discrimination is necessary to achieve a compelling governmental interest. The court found that this standard was not met. Of significance, it rejected the state's argument that preserving the traditional definition of marriage by excluding same-sex couples is a compelling state interest, particularly in light of the stigma and harm to same-sex couples and their families from this discrimination.

Sound logic and constitutional law here. Eventually, when our Supreme Court is run by people who actually care about the law and not partisan/ideological nonsense, they'll rule the same way.