Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to take on gay marriage, two gay couples at the center of a fight for marriage equality in California are being thrust into the national spotlight.
The battle over California's voter-approved anti-gay marriage law Proposition 8 is one of two huge gay marriage cases the nation's highest court will hear in March.
Two gay couples whose marriages were invalidated by Proposition 8 successfully sued to overturn the law, and a federal appeals court in California ultimately sided with them.
But then California citizens fighting to keep the anti-gay law brought their case to the Supreme Court, jeopardizing the marriage rights of all gay couples in the Golden State.
The two couples whose names are attached to the anti-Prop 8 fight both have a wholesome quality that gay marriage advocates probably believed would help their cause.
Kris Perry and Sandy Stier have been together for more than 13 years and already have four children, according to a video profile posted by the American Foundation for Equal Rights.
Stier hales from rural Iowa and boasts on this video that her parents have been married for 50 years. "Marriage was significant and honored and taken very, very seriously," Stier says.
Perry describes the home they've created for their four boys "consistent and stable and predictable and reliable."
Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo have been together for a dozen years.
Katami says he came from a "Donna Reed family," and Zarrillo came from a very Catholic family.
When Zarrillo came out to his mother, he was nervous she'd react badly. But instead, she said this: "You love each other just the same as anyone else does."
Now, both Katami and Zarrillo feel excited and anxious about the Supreme Court battle for gay marriage, they told the LA Times in December. But they said they thought the high court would ultimately side with them.
"We hope that history has taught us one thing, that the courts are there to protect us," Katami said.
SEE ALSO: There's Absolutely No Logical Argument Against Gay Marriage
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