The Proposition 8 trial had a bit of everything Wednesday, from an expert doubting President Barack Obama’s support for gay rights to new revelations about the depth of Mormon church involvement in the political campaign to enact California’s same-sex marriage ban.

The trial day also included testimony from a gay man who described being forced by his outraged parents to undergo “conversion therapy” at a Southern California research center in hopes he would abandon homosexuality as a teenager. The testimony was targeted at an argument from foes of gay marriage who maintain homosexuality is a choice, not an inherent biological characteristic.

“I knew I was gay, just like I knew I was short and half Hispanic,” said Ryan Kendall, a Denver man who told the courtroom the therapy left him suicidal.

The testimony came in the seventh day of the Proposition 8 trial unfolding here before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who is considering a legal challenge to the 2008 voter-approved ban on the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed. Same-sex couples have sued to overturn the law, saying it violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Read the rest of Howard Mintz’s San Jose Mercury article here.