September 2007
Religious Coalition Files Marriage Equality Amicus Brief With California Supreme Court

Press Release, September 26, 2007

More than 400 signatories, religious leaders and faith organizations, including many Unitarian Universalists and UU Legislative Ministry-CA, have filed an amicus curiae or “friend of the court” brief in California’s Supreme Court in support of the six marriage cases under the title In re Marriage Cases.

UULM-CA and California Faith for Equality coordinated the filing of the brief, organized press conferences in five cities, and interfaith celebrations across the state to commemorate the historic filing.

By our presence here today we bear witness. We have spoken our names aloud and claimed our years together. We have formed a listening silence to hold and honor the naming. We who have spoken and we who have listened now stand together in witness.

We bear witness to courage: the turn of our hearts that bids us to new speech and new action in the name of justice.

We bear witness to commitment: the promise made and kept, the steadfast will that anchors us even in the high storm winds.

We bear witness to love: we say that love is holy and ancient and powerful.

Here we bless the love between women. Here we bless the love between men. Here we say that where love arises, All is blessed. All is blessed. All is blessed.

-Rev. Kathleen McTigue

The briefs, argue that California violates its own constitution by denying same-sex couples the freedom to marry.

The California Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last year after the California Court of Appeal reversed a decision by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard A. Kramer in Woo v. Lockyer, finding that barring same-sex couples from marriage unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of sex and violates the fundamental right to marry

The organizations have filed the briefs in the coordinated marriage cases now before the California Supreme Court. They are responding to arguments presented by the state of California, which is defending the discriminatory law, and to four supplemental questions asked by the California Supreme Court on June 20. NCLR, Lambda Legal, the ACLU, Heller Ehrman LLP, and the Law Office of David C. Codell represent 15 same-sex couples, Equality California, and Our Family Coalition.

"Although opponents of marriage equality say they speak for traditional values, freedom to marry for all is actually supported by many people of faith, including two of America’s oldest Protestant denominations, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations,” said Rev. Lindi Ramsden, Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry, California.

“We believe that civil marriage validates relationships and strengthens families—and these are certainly values that any person of faith would uphold,” she added.