Sandy Stier, one of the Proposition 8-fighting plaintiffs profiled in the HBO documentary "The Case Against 8," remembers the deposition preceding her court testimony for Hollingsworth v. Perry as being "particularly long."
The reason? Her past relationships with men, including a marriage. In a HuffPost Live interview on Tuesday, she recalled the extent to which she was asked about her romantic history and her certainty about her sexual orientation.
"It was because we talked a lot about relationships I had with men as a younger woman and the immutability issue around the case," she told host Alyona Mikovski. "And what it really comes down to is, there was a great deal of questioning of, 'Are you really gay? How do you know you're gay?'"
Stier's response was that she knew she was "in love with Kris," her partner, and that she wanted to marry her.
"Marriage is about love -- that's why people get married in the first place," she said. "Our love is just as valid as anybody else's."
Her narrative proved to be more powerful than pro-Prop 8 rallies and bumper stickers. The case would go on to be instrumental in the revoking of California's gay marriage ban, but that didn't diminish the emotional consequences for the couple.
"What was really important about that political campaign as it traveled through the court system is that it didn't hold up in court," Perry said. "[Prop 8 supporters] did a terrific job, honestly, of scaring Californians into believing that if they supported marriage equality, horrible things would happen to kids. It was a very smart political tactic, but on a personal level, it was very painful."
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