Challengers of California’s ban on same-sex marriage are trying to show at trial today that discrimination against gays and lesbians is rooted in religion and that churches have contributed to anti-gay violence.

Opponents of Proposition 8 called to the stand Ryan Kendall, who grew up in an evangelical Christian family in Colorado and was forced to submit to Christian therapy as a teenager to change his sexual orientation.

“I was just as gay as when I started, ” Kendall testified.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who is presiding over the marriage trial, permitted Kendall to testify over objections by Proposition 8′s defenders, on the grounds they had argued sexual orientation was changeable.

Kendall, now a resident of Denver, testified tearfully about how his mother abused him after learning of his sexuality from reading his journal. He said he was called slurs and that his glasses were smashed while attending an evangelical school.

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