SD Mayor Jerry Sanders Honored For Gay Marriage Support
- By
- On Top Magazine Staff
- | September 21, 2010
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.