LOS ANGELES (AP) – California Sen. William J. “Pete” Knight, author of the state’s same-sex marriage ban and a former record-setting military test pilot, died of leukemia May 7. He was 74.

Knight died of an acute form of the cancer at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, his communications director David Orosco said.

Knight, a Republican from Palmdale, had been absent from his seat since April 12 because of his illness.

“The worst thing about this is he wanted to keep working, going, contributing,” said Knight’s wife, Gail. “He wanted to live. He wanted to try. God had a different plan.”

He is best known as author of the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, which says that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized as valid in California. After failing to get similar legislation through the Democrat-controlled Legislature, Knight took it to voters; the measure passed with 61 percent approval in 2000.

He has since used the courts to keep state agencies from granting spousal rights to same-sex couples. His nonprofit group is at the center of the legal challenges to San Francisco’s same-sex wedding spree.

His son, David Knight, married Joseph Lazzaro, his partner of 10 years, at San Francisco’s City Hall earlier this year, just two days before the California Supreme Court shut down the weddings.

Lazzaro said David Knight was not ready to comment on his father’s death, and declined to say whether David and his father had reconciled.

Sen. Knight recently told The Associated Press that his drive to keep gays and lesbians from marrying doesn’t make him anti-gay.

“We’ve had homosexuals since time immemorial,” he said. “And nobody cared as long as they did their work and they didn’t flaunt their sexuality and didn’t try to push it on you and say, ‘You have to accept me.’ But now they are going to say they want to be classified as normal, and I can’t accept the fact that two men, married, is normal.”

In addition to his wife, Knight is survived by three sons, four stepsons and 15 grandchildren.