Ellen And Portia's Wedding Won't Be Nullified
 Tuesday, November 11th, 2008  by Connie T.

Leave it to Barbara Walters to get a direct answer from the Attorney General of California as to whether or not the 16,000 same-sex couples who wed in California before Proposition 8 passed will still have valid marriages. Walters rang up Edmund "Jerry" Brown to find out if those marriages would be declared invalid.

She was told that the new amendment to the California Constitution does not call for the nullification of those marriages, which took place between May 15th - when the Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on gay marriage - and November, when voters passed a new ban. Said Brown,

The language of Proposition 8 is silent on retroactivity, and California law generally provides the laws apply only prospectively. I will defend in court the marriages contracted before that Proposition 8 was signed.

This means the marriage of Ellen DeGeneres to Portia DeRossi, and all other marriages that took place in those nearly six months, will stand.

We thought it might go the other way since the language of Prop 8 says only heterosexual marriages are "valid or recognized" in California, which sounds pretty all-encompassing. It may be challenged in court, but for now, Mrs. & Mrs. DeGeneres are recognized as such by CA.

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