The legal team challenging Proposition 8 in a federal trial tried to show Thursday that the ballot initiative was a form of bias that was likely to make gays and lesbians more vulnerable to mental health problems.

Columbia University professor Ilan H. Meyer, an expert in mental health issues among gays, lesbians and bisexuals, testified that gays and lesbians were more likely to suffer from mental disorders than heterosexuals because of discrimination.

Proposition 8 sent “a message that gay relationships are not respected, that they are of secondary value if they are of any value at all,” Meyer said. He also said the 2008 measure made the public statement that it was OK “to designate gay people as a different class of people in terms of their intimate relationships.”

Lawyers for two same-sex couples challenging the federal constitutionality of the gay marriage ban said Meyer’s testimony was designed to show that Proposition 8 harmed a minority that has long suffered discrimination.

Read the rest of Maura Dolan’s LA Times article here.