San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders will be
honored for his support of gay marriage, the San Diego
Union-Tribune reported.
Sanders will be recognized during the
Gay & Lesbian Medical Association's annual four-day conference
being held in San Diego's Westin Emerald Plaza starting Wednesday.
The Republican mayor is set to receive
the group's Achievement Award, and is expected to address
convention-goers on Wednesday.
Sanders provided emotional testimony
during the second week of a federal trial that found California's gay
marriage ban, Proposition 8, unconstitutional.
In his testimony, the former San Diego
police chief, who has a lesbian daughter, freely admitted that he
once opposed gay marriage, saying he believed civil unions were a
“fair alternative.”
He was prepared to veto a 2007 San
Diego City Council-approved resolution calling on the city to file an
amicus brief in support of a San Francisco challenge to the ban.
Instead, he found himself giving a tearful press conference where he
said he could no longer oppose marriage equality. With his wife by
his side, Sander told reporters: “I have close family members and
friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. Those
folks include my daughter Lisa.”
“I was discriminating against my own
daughter,” a regretful Sanders said during the trial in January.
Headlining the conference is the Rev.
V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal
Church.