Your guide to Proposition 3: Affirming gay marriage in California’s Constitution

Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Campbell) authored legislation asking voters to remove and replace the Proposition 8 definition, calling it “discriminatory and unconstitutional.”

The measure comes amid Democrats’ distrust of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Advocates of Proposition 3 point to a concurring opinion by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the 2022 case overturning of Roe vs. Wade, which provided a right to abortion. Thomas wrote then that the nation’s highest court should reconsider rulings that rely on similar legal reasoning as in the landmark abortion case, including those that protect same-sex marriage and access to contraception.

A legislative analysis of the bill said that “courts can change” and pointed out that the current Supreme Court no longer includes two of the justices who supported the 2015 landmark ruling that protects an equal right to marriage.

“It is true that marriage equality is still currently the law in the United States; however, it is not impossible that this will not always remain the case,” the analysis said.