Judge Walker found that Proposition 8's only justification is "a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples," and that the proponent's examples of state interests were "nothing more than post-hoc justifications."
In the opinion's final pages, he observes: "The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples." Because moral disapproval alone cannot support rational basis review, he held Proposition 8 violates Equal Protection as well.
He further noted that Proposition 8 was based on tradition and moral disapproval of homosexuality, and that those two things are not legal grounds for discrimination.
Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.