California Supreme Court made its ruling Thursday morning and decided to uphold the ban against same-sex marriages. In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of the gay couples, saying that gender discrimination violates the Constitution’s equality right.

Therefore, Californian gay couple can start planning their wedding because they will be able to marry from mid-June.

Although California had already offered same-sex couples who were registered as domestic partners legal rights and responsibilities as married couples, the court agreed that this domestic partnership law was a second-class substitute for marriage.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the court said that, by calling the relationship of same-sex couples a “domestic partnership” imposes “appreciable harm” on couples and their children.

From now on, any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation will be the equivalent of a law that discriminates by race or gender, making it constitutionally suspect. This tough rule makes California Supreme Court the first one to adopt such a rigorous standard. 

This decision is clearly a victory for more than 100,000 same-sex couples but there are many who oppose it.

Religious and conservative groups made it clear that they would support an initiative proposed for the November ballot that would amend the California Constitution overturn the decision, banning again same-sex marriages. The proposed ballot initiative has gathered more than one million signatures and opponents expect a victory in November.

Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, called the decision “outrageous.”

According to The New York Times, Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, said that this decision was wrong because it didn’t take into account the “history and meaning of marriage” in their tradition.

Lawyers on both sides said that if the proposed November initiative qualifies for the ballot, it would be uncertain in what way couples who marry during the next months would be affected.

San Francisco was the city which brought the case of same-sex marriages before the California court, along with two dozen gay and lesbian couples, Equality California and another gay rights group in March 2004. After 4 years their cause has finally won.

Looking at other nations we can see that gays and lesbians may marry in five countries: Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and South Africa.