Same-sex Marriage in California - Legislation

Legislation

See also: Same-sex marriage legislation in the United States

From the enactment of legislation in 1971 to replace gendered pronouns with gender-neutral pronouns, until 1977, California Civil Code § 4100 defined marriage as "a personal relation arising out of a civil contract, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary." This definition was uniformly interpreted as including only opposite-sex partners, but, because of worries that the language was unclear, Assembly Bill No. 607 was proposed and later passed to "prohibit persons of the same sex from entering lawful marriage." The act amended the Civil Code to define marriage as "a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary." Since 1994, this language is found in § 300 of the Family Code.

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