Gay couples ask high court for marriage equality

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gay and lesbian couples who are challenging California's ban on same-sex marriage say the Constitution prohibits discrimination against them in the nation's largest state or anywhere else in America.

Prohibitions on gay marriage are enshrined in 30 state constitutions and in statutes in roughly 10 other states. Their brief describes it as a "badge of inferiority, separateness and inequality" that "must be extinguished."

But in the brief filed Thursday with the Supreme Court, the gay group suggests several options in their consideration of California's Proposition 8 that stop short of declaring full marriage equality across the United States.