of the same legal obligations and duties, that California law affords to and imposes
upon a married couple.2 Past California cases explain that the constitutional
validity of a challenged statute or statutes must be evaluated by taking into
consideration all of the relevant statutory provisions that bear upon how the state
treats the affected persons with regard to the subject at issue. (See, e.g., Brown v.
Merlo (1973) 8 Cal.3d 855, 862.) Accordingly, the legal issue we must resolve is
not whether it would be constitutionally permissible under the California
Constitution for the state to limit marriage only to opposite-sex couples while
denying same-sex couples any opportunity to enter into...

of the same legal obligations and duties, that California law affords to and imposes
upon a married couple.2 Past California cases explain that the constitutional
validity of a challenged statute or statutes must be evaluated by taking into
consideration all of the relevant statutory provisions that bear upon how the state
treats the affected persons with regard to the subject at issue. (See, e.g., Brown v.
Merlo (1973) 8 Cal.3d 855, 862.) Accordingly, the legal issue we must resolve is
not whether it would be constitutionally permissible under the California
Constitution for the state to limit marriage only to opposite-sex couples while
denying same-sex couples any opportunity to enter into an official relationship
with all or virtually all of the same substantive attributes, but rather whether our

marriage rather than a domestic partnership (or some other term), but instead only
to determine whether the difference in the official names of the relationships
violates the California Constitution. We are aware, of course, that very strongly
held differences of opinion exist on the matter of policy, with those persons who
support the inclusion of same-sex unions within the definition of marriage
maintaining that it is unfair to same-sex couples and potentially detrimental to the
fiscal interests of the state and its economic institutions to reserve the designation
of marriage solely for opposite-sex couples, and others asserting that it is vitally
important to preserve the long-standing an...

marriage rather than a domestic partnership (or some other term), but instead only
to determine whether the difference in the official names of the relationships
violates the California Constitution. We are aware, of course, that very strongly
held differences of opinion exist on the matter of policy, with those persons who
support the inclusion of same-sex unions within the definition of marriage
maintaining that it is unfair to same-sex couples and potentially detrimental to the
fiscal interests of the state and its economic institutions to reserve the designation
of marriage solely for opposite-sex couples, and others asserting that it is vitally
important to preserve the long-standing and traditional definition of marriage as a
union between a man and a woman, even as the state extends comparable rights
and responsibilities to committed same-sex couples. Whatever our views as
individuals with regard to this question as a matter of policy, we recognize as