In the Supreme Court of California
Filed 5/26/09 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA KAREN L. STRAUSS et al., ) Petitioners, ) v. ) MARK B. HORTON, as State Registrar of Vital Statistics, etc., et al., ) S168047 Respondents; ) DENNIS HOLLINGSWORTH et al., ) Interveners. ) ———————————————————————————— ) ROBIN TYLER et al., ) Petitioners, ) v. ) THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA et al., ) S168066 Respondents; ) DENNIS HOLLINGSWORTH et al., ) Interveners. ) ———————————————————————————— ) CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO et al., ) Petitioners, ) v. ) MARK B. HORTON, as State Registrar of Vital Statistics, etc., et al., ) S168078 Respondents; ) DENNIS HOLLINGSWORTH et al., ) Interveners. ) ———————————————————————————— For the third time in recent years, this court is called upon to address a question under California law relating to marriage and same-sex couples. In Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1055 (Lockyer), we were faced with the question whether public officials of the City and County of San Francisco acted lawfully by issuing marriage licenses to same- 1 sex couples in the absence of a judicial determination that the California statutes limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman were unconstitutional. We concluded in Lockyer that the public officials had acted unlawfully in issuing licenses in the absence of such a judicial determination, but emphasized in our opinion that the substantive question of the constitutional validity of the marriage statutes was not before our court in that proceeding. In In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757 (hereafter the Marriage Cases), we confronted the substantive constitutional question that had not been addressed in Lockyer — namely, the constitutional validity, under the then- controlling provisions of the California Constitution, of the California marriage statutes limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman.
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