On Monday, July 10, the California Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Woo v. California, marking an important milestone in our collective efforts to achieve full equality for same-sex couples and their families in California.

Many states have left these families behind without the support provided to all other families. The arguments presented by all the attorneys in the five consolidated cases made clear why California should support those families and why the court should affirm the lower court’s decision striking down one of the last remaining state laws that mandate discrimination against an entire group of people.

Therese Stewart, chief San Francisco deputy city attorney, and Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), who represented same-sex couples and Equality California, were rock-solid in their arguments that the California Constitution prohibits arbitrary discrimination.

“Same-sex couples are just as able to love, to honor, to cherish and to support one another as heterosexual couples,” Minter said. “Their children benefit equally from the stability and status which marriage provides.”

In contrast, the state could not point to any reason for excluding same-sex couples from marriage other than because the state has “always” done so in the past. Even under intense questioning from the court, the attorney for the state could not identify a single substantive justification for continuing this harmful exclusion.

In the states’ view, although California’s domestic partnership is not equal to marriage, it should be good enough for these families. The weakness of this position was apparent, especially when balanced against the compelling stories of how being excluded from marriage harms real families.

Equality California, working with NCLR, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal, has worked diligently to expand California law to support the lives and liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. We have done so in order to pave the way for ending discrimination against same-sex couples in our marriage laws.

Working with same-sex couples like the plaintiffs in this case and thousands of EQCA members and volunteers across the state, we are educating Californians about the realities of our lives and the struggles we face to achieve what other families take for granted.

It was clear from the arguments presented on both sides and the questions asked by the judges that because of our collective work in the Legislature, in the courts and at the grassroots level, the standard in California is that same-sex couples and their families should be treated equally under the law.

Unlike other states like New York where the high court upheld the state’s discriminatory marriage law, the courts in California – thanks to NCLR, the ACLU, Lambda Legal and others – have ruled consistently that same-sex parents and their children deserve equal legal protections. The Legislature demonstrated this principle with the passage of a comprehensive domestic partner registry program in 2003 and again last year by passing the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, granting same-sex couples the freedom to marry. Equality California was proud to sponsor both of those groundbreaking pieces of legislation.

The arguments presented in court are another step on our path toward full equality under the law for all Californians. The path is a long one and we have many goals to accomplish before we reach the end, but we will get there.

Can we guarantee that the Court of Appeals will affirm our equality? No, but NCLR and EQCA are very proud to be working together to set the stage for achieving what no state outside of Massachusetts has been able to accomplish: full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people that includes the freedom to marry. Doing so will make it possible for tens of thousands of same-sex couples across California to live the happily-ever-after dream they so richly deserve.

Seth Kilbourn is the political director of Equality California, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to achieve equality and civil rights for GLBT Californians.