[Nat]

"A state’s interest in an enactment must of course be
secular in nature. The state does not have an interest in
enforcing private moral or religious beliefs without an
accompanying secular purpose."

Amen

"At oral argument on proponents’ motion for summary
judgment, the court posed to proponents’ counsel the assumption
that “the state’s interest in marriage is procreative” and inquired
how permitting same-sex marriage impairs or adversely affects that
interest. Doc #228 at 21. Counsel replied that the inquiry was
“not the legally relevant question,” id, but when pressed for an
answer, counsel replied: “Your honor, my answer is: I don’t know.
I don’t know.”"

heee

Proponents’ procreation argument, distilled to its
essence, is as follows: the state has an interest in encouraging
sexual activity between people of the opposite sex to occur in
stable marriages because such sexual activity may lead to pregnancy
and children, and the state has an interest in encouraging parents
to raise children in stable households. Tr 3050:17-3051:10. The
state therefore, the argument goes, has an interest in encouraging
all opposite-sex sexual activity, whether responsible or
irresponsible, procreative or otherwise, to occur within a stable
marriage, as this encourages the development of a social norm that
opposite-sex sexual activity should occur within marriage. Tr
3053:10-24. Entrenchment of this norm increases the probability
that procreation will occur within a marital union. Because samesex
couples’ sexual activity does not lead to procreation,
according to proponents the state has no interest in encouraging
their sexual activity to occur within a stable marriage. Thus,
according to proponents, the state’s only interest is in oppositesex
sexual activity.

Katami and Stier testified about the effect Proposition 8
campaign advertisements had on their well-being. Katami explained
that he was angry and upset at the idea that children needed to be
protected from him. After watching a Proposition 8 campaign
message, PX0401 (Video, Tony Perkins, Miles McPherson, and Ron
Prentice Asking for Support of Proposition 8), Katami stated that
“it just demeans you. It just makes you feel like people are
putting efforts into discriminating against you.” Tr 108:14-16.
Stier, as the mother of four children, was especially disturbed at
the message that Proposition 8 had something to do with protecting
children. She felt the campaign messages were “used to sort of try
to educate people or convince people that there was a great evil to
be feared and that evil must be stopped and that evil is us, I
guess. * * * And the very notion that I could be part of what
others need to protect their children from was just —— it was more
than upsetting. It was sickening, truly. I felt sickened by that
campaign.”