SACRAMENTO - On their second day on the job, two San Francisco-based Democratic state lawmakers launched bills in support of overturning Prop. 8, the recently enacted ballot measure that bans gay marriage in California.

On Tuesday, the second day of the 2009-10 legislative session, Sen. Mark Leno and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (both D-San Francisco) launched Senate Resolution 7 and HR 5 in the Assembly. If approved, the bills would place both houses of the California Legislature on record as opposing the controversial initiative and declaring it an illegal revision to the state constitution.

"Prop. 8's revision to the California Constitution violates key structural checks and balances built into our legal system," Leno said. "Overnight, the constitutional protections of thousands of tax-paying, law-abiding California citizens were stripped from them by a simple majority vote, without a prior two-thirds vote by both houses of the legislature, thereby trampling on their fundamental right to equal protection."

Lawsuits, filed by opponents of Prop. 8 last month, are scheduled to be heard by the state Supreme Court early next year. At issue is whether Prop. 8 represented a revision or amendment to the state constitution. If the justices rule that the ballot measure was a revision, the measure may be overturned.   

The bills were sponsored and supported by the LGBT Legislative Caucus, Senate President President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and a number of gay rights groups including Equality California, the most prominent gay civil rights group to oppose the measure.

"Prop. 8 eliminates the fundamental right to marry from same-sex couples and allows a slim majority to take away the equal protections of a single minority group, which violates one of the fundamental and founding principles of our Constitution," said EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors.