On the sixth day of trial, Mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego, a Republican, testified about how he came to support marriage equality.

Testimony Highlights

On his last-minute decision not to veto a San Diego resolution supporting marriage equality: “I was saying that one group of people did not deserve the same dignity and respect, did not deserve the same symbolism about marriage. And I was saying, in effect, that their marriages were less than, were less important than the marriages to heterosexual couples.”

Opposition to marriage equality “didn’t mean I hated gay people. … It simply meant that I hadn’t understood the issue clearly enough.”

“[I]f government tolerates discrimination against anyone for any reason, it becomes an excuse for the public to do exactly the same thing.”