let's hear it for l.a.

from sf chronicle:

LA County joins Prop. 8 fight
Los Angeles County has hopped on board the Proposition 8 litigation train, making that four California governments -- led by San Francisco, naturally -- to challenge the same-sex marriage ban.

The LA County Board of Supervisors this morning asked the county counsel to join a petition filed with the California Supreme Court arguing that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional. The petition, filed the day after the election last Wednesday, also includes the city of Los Angeles and Santa Clara County.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera was in Los Angeles this morning to encourage the five LA supervisors to support the legal challenge.

"This measure sought to do something that no constitutional amendment has ever done in our history: to strip a fundamental right from a protected class of citizens," Herrera said.

"Let us be clear. Equal protection of the laws is what separates constitutional democracy from mob-rule tyranny," he said. "It is a principle reaching back eight centuries to the Magna Carta. And it is what guided the founding of our state and our nation."

Three of the five supervisors voted in favor of joining the legal battle; two of the supervisors weren't there for the vote.