CA: Prop 8 Trial Update, Day 6

This morning we heard first from Jerry Sanders, the Republican Mayor of San Diego. I remember Mayor Sanders well from the 2008 election -- he made a heartfelt and courageous statement about his lesbian daughter and why he opposed Proposition 8 that, to me, was one of the most profound moments of the campaign. Mayor Sanders' testimony today was similarly powerful. Adding to the star power of the day, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera conducted Mayor Sander's examination. Mayor Sanders, the former Police Chief of San Diego, testified about the evolution of his own support for marriage equality. Many years ago, he came to believe that harassment against gay people was wrong after seeing a good police officer hounded out of the department for being gay. Mayor Sanders also testified that he had shared a close relationship with his daughter, Lisa, who is a lesbian, and worried about her because of the persistence of hate crimes and discrimination against LGBT people. But as recently as 2007, he continued to believe and to take the public position that civil unions were equal to marriage. In 2007, Mayor Sanders had publicly committed to veto a San Diego City Council resolution authorizing the filing of a supportive brief in the California marriage case. He testified that the night before he was to veto the resolution, he spoke with same-sex couples, and was overwhelmed by the "depth of hurt" these couples experienced from being treated unequally. Despite his political commitments, Mayor Sanders testified, "I could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people that they were unequal . . . I couldn't look them in the face and tell them their relationships were any less meaningful than the relationship I shared with my wife." Full Story from Pam's House Blend

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