SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California, a U.S. trendsetter for progressive policies and a state where the current governor once made news issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in San Francisco before it was legal, will attempt to enshrine marriage equality in the state constitution.

The effort comes 15 years after a voter-approved initiative, Proposition 8, banned the state from recognizing same-sex marriages. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California. The constitutional amendment is still on the books, however, and that worries advocates who think the high court may revisit the 2015 case that legalized gay marriage nationwide.

“It’s absolute poison, it is so destructive and it’s humiliating that this is in our constitution,” said Scott Wiener, a state senator who represents San Francisco.

Wiener and Assembly Member Evan Low of Silicon Valley, both Democrats and members of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, introduced legislation Tuesday to rescind Proposition 8. The measure would need to be approved in the Legislature by a two-thirds vote, and then it will ultimately fall to voters to decide via a referendum.

In the days leading up to Proposition 8′s approval, Low joined opponents of the measure outside his alma mater De Anza College in Cupertino, California, to call on voters to reject the initiative. When it passed, it felt personal to Low, who is gay.

“Why do fellow Californians hate me?” he said. “Why do they feel that my rights should be eliminated?”

California could follow in the footsteps of Nevada, which in 2020 became the first state to amend its constitution to ensure the right to same-sex marriage. The matter took on fresh urgency last year when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion established by Roe v. Wade. At the time, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called into question other prominent cases and urged the court to reconsider them. His list included Obergefell v. Hodges, which forced states to issue and recognize same-sex marriages.

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote, referencing two other landmark cases involving access to birth control and a decision striking down laws against same-sex sexual activity.

In December, President Joe Biden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires states to recognize same-sex marriages, but the legislation doesn’t force states to allow them if Obergefell is overturned.

Wiener and Low, the two California lawmakers, hope to replicate the process under which state voters in November approved a constitutional change guaranteeing the right to abortion.

Jeremy Yancey and Fabio de Andrade, who got married Tuesday at a Valentine’s Day celebration at San Francisco City Hall, said Proposition 8′s repeal is overdue.

“It’s about time. Protecting our rights as human beings is very vital,” Yancey said. “It should’ve happened many years ago.”

Assembly Member Greg Wallis, a Republican representing part of San Bernadino County, said in a statement that he was proud to co-author the legislation.

“The reality is that marriage is a contract and commitment between any two people in love, and it’s high time we make that clear,” Wallis said.

The path to marriage equality in the Golden State was uneven. In 2000, voters approved a statute that banned the recognition of same-sex marriages, a measure that was overturned by the courts. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who became San Francisco’s mayor in 2004, issued marriages in the city to same-sex couples in a move that defied the law and ran counter to views then held by many in his party. In 2005, the California Legislature was ahead of all other states when it passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. But then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, vetoed it.

Support for marriage equality has rapidly expanded since the Obergefell ruling. While Mormon groups helped fund the Proposition 8 campaign in California, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out in support of the Respect for Marriage Act.

Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, is optimistic the group can help build a large supportive coalition for the proposed amendment.

“I know this will be a bipartisan campaign,” he said.

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Among U.S. faith leaders and denominations, there are sharp differences over the bill advancing in the Senate that would protect same-sex and interracial marriages in federal law.

The measure, a high priority for congressional Democrats, won a key test vote Wednesday when 12 Senate Republicans joined all Democrats to forward the bill for a final vote in the coming days. At least 10 GOP senators were needed for that to happen.

On Tuesday, one of the most prominent conservative-leaning denominations — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — came out in favor of the legislation. But the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention remain opposed, saying the bill – even with a newly added amendment aimed at attracting Republican support – is a dire threat to religious liberty.

A paramount concern for these leaders of the country’s two largest denominations is that even the updated bill would not protect religious schools or faith-based nonprofits such as adoption and foster care providers.

The bill “is an intentional attack on the religious freedom of millions of Americans with sincerely held beliefs about marriage, based on dictates of faith in God,” leaders of the Missouri Baptist Convention, an SBC affiliate, said in a letter this week to U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican.

The letter failed to sway Blunt; he voted for the bill.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, chairman of the Catholic bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty, dismissed the bipartisan amendment as failing even the “meager goal” of preserving the status quo in balancing religious freedom with the right to same-sex marriage.

“The bill will be a new arrow in the quiver of those who wish to deny religious organizations’ liberty to freely exercise their religious duties, strip them of their tax exemptions, or exclude them from full participation in the public arena,” Dolan said earlier this week.

Meanwhile, many left-of-center faith leaders are cheering the bill, including some who planned a Thursday morning rally at the U.S. Capitol. Rally sponsors include the Interfaith Alliance, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the United Church of Christ Justice and Local Church Ministries and Hindus for Human Rights.

“This is common sense legislation which provides religious liberty for all and not just a few,” said Tarunjit Singh Butalia, executive director of Religions for Peace USA. “Faith communities need to work on living out the principles of marriage enshrined in their own faith without imposing their religious views on people of other faiths and no faith.”

The bill won approval in the House in July. A final Senate vote is expected soon, and the measure — if approved — would then return to the House for consideration of Senate changes.

The bill has gained steady momentum since the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to abortion. An opinion at that time from Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that an earlier high court decision protecting same-sex marriage could also come under threat.

Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, noted the court opinions in her statement lauding Wednesday’s vote. She called the legislation a “vital step in our nation’s march toward freedom without favor and equality without exception.”

The legislation included a proposed Senate amendment, designed to bring more Republicans on board, clarifying that it does not affect rights of private individuals or businesses that are already enshrined in law. Another tweak would make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

However, numerous conservative faith leaders scoffed at the changes.

“The new amended Senate bill—the ‘commonsense’ bill that ‘protects Americans’ religious liberties’—actually does no such thing,” wrote the Rev. Al Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in an opinion piece. “What is left wide open is the threat to ministries such as Christian orphanages and children’s care as well as adoption ministries and foster care.”

The head of the Southern Baptist’s public policy arm, Brent Leatherwood of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, faulted the bill’s Senate backers for pushing legislation “that will only divide us.”

“We oppose this bill because marriage is an institution created by God, one with a very specific design: A union between one man and one woman for life,” Leatherwood said via email.

Pastor Jack Hibbs who leads Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, an evangelical megachurch in Southern California, said the legislation “creates an atmosphere of great disrespect for marriage.”

“We have seen this in recent years, for example, regarding businesses that provide services for weddings, from wedding venues to bakeries and florists,” he said, adding that nonprofits could be sued “because of their personal and foundational convictions, which should be protected by the First Amendment.”

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, chairman of the Catholic bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, said the bill provided inadequate religious protections.

“I object to language like exceptions, because it means that we’re allowed a pass to discriminate,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “But that’s not what we’re doing at all. We’re affirming that children need a mother and a father.”

He acknowledged that leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “seem to be moving in a different direction” regarding same-sex marriage. “But they’ve been very, very strong partners with us in trying to keep the focus on the the need to preserve the family.”

In its statement Tuesday, the Utah-based LDS said church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments, but that it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

Among the faith leaders urging passage of the bill was the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, an American Baptist pastor who is president of Interfaith Alliance and is part of a same-sex marriage.

”There is a misconception that faith and LGBTQ+ equality are fundamentally incompatible,” he wrote in an opinion piece carried Wednesday by Religion News Service.

“As a religious leader, I regard this historic legislation as an important contribution to America’s religious freedom,” he wrote. ”More immediately, I am not willing to leave the status of the marriages I’ve performed or my own to chance.”

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