[3] The Act added Section 308.5 of the Family Code, which read "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California".

In November 2008, California voters overturned the In re Marriage Cases decision by approving an amendment of the state constitution called Proposition 8.

In June 2010, Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional by U.S. district judge Vaughn Walker based on the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

[10] Advocates of Proposition 22 described Section 308 as a "loophole", apparently forcing California to recognize a same-sex marriage validly contracted in some other state.

[11] To address this, Proposition 22 did not reword the existing provisions of the Family Code, but added to them the declaration that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California".

California Courts of Appeal rejected those claims, noting that domestic partnerships already existed as a legal institution separate from marriage at the time Prop 22 was enacted.

In his veto message,[16] Schwarzenegger argued that passing a law that would implicitly repeal Section 308.5 required the assent of the electorate (and separately made note of pending court challenges).

In Armijo v. Miles, the Second Appellate District Distinguished Prop 22 from the case at bar by noting, in part, that the initiative prevented the recognition of same-sex marriages conducted outside California: The legislative analysis and the ballot arguments readily demonstrate that Proposition 22 was crafted with a prophylactic purpose in mind.

The court appears to have ultimately presumed that Proposition 22 did indeed apply to in-state arrangements deemed to be "marriages," but held that the challenged wrongful death statute did not violate that prohibition: The question remaining is whether the portion of AB 2580 that amends the wrongful death statute subverts Proposition 22.

[19]As with Armijo, the Knight court upheld the challenged statute on the grounds that it did not constitute a "marriage" for purposes of Prop 22 or Section 300.

"[23] Separately, numerous challenges to the constitutionality of the opposite-sex requirements found in California's marriage statutes, including Prop 22, came before the courts.

[25] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately issued a statement pledging to uphold the ruling, and repeated his pledge to oppose Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment initiative that would override the Court's ruling and again ban same sex marriages by placing the text of Proposition 22 in the State Constitution.