City Attorney Herrera has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the City in support of a federal lawsuit brought by two California couples challenging the validity of Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that eliminated the fundamental right of marriage for gay and lesbian citizens in California.

The brief filed with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on June 18 argues that the controversial amendment narrowly approved by California voters in Nov. 2008 violates the equal protection guarantee of the U.S. Constitution because it deprives constitutional rights to a single class of citizens for no purpose other than animus and moral disapproval. In doing so, Herrera argues, California's Prop 8 is analogous to a 1992 state constitutional amendment in Colorado -- Amendment 2 -- which similarly singled out gays and lesbians for disparate treatment, and which was later invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark 1996 ruling in Romer v. Evans.

Said Herrera: "The constitutional challenge to Proposition 8 in federal court persuasively argues that the measure's only conceivable purpose was to withhold honor and respect from the relationships of same-sex couples, and to do so to them alone."

• Read the City Attorney's news release, "Herrera Files Amicus Brief in Support of Federal Challenge to Proposition 8; City argues that California's Prop 8 was based on moral disapproval of gays and lesbians, similar to Colorado amendment that U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 1996" (June 18, 2009)
• Download the PDF of the City Attorney's presskit on the Prop 8 U.S. District Court amicus brief (June 18, 2009)