Democrat Jerry Brown has long been an outspoken critic of California’s ban on same-sex marriages, even refusing to 
defend the voter approved law known as Proposition 8 in court in his role as California’s attorney general – a move that won the hearts of gay and civil rights activists even as it raised eyebrows among legal scholars .
So before U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker even ruled on Thursday that gay marriages can resume next week, while those who oppose them appeal his earlier decision finding the ban unconstitutional, Jerry Brown the candidate for governor was Tweeting out his support:
“Hoping Judge Walker will allow same-sex couples in CA to marry while the Prop 8 case appeal is pending. We should find out before noon,” Brown (or someone on his staff) Tweeted about two hours before the ruling.
And the Tweet paid off for Brown, who has been criticized among members of his own party for a slow start in the governor’s race against Republican Meg Whitman, a political novice and Silicon Valley billionaire who — in largely bankrolling her own campaign — has so far outspent him by a huge margin. As of mid-afternoon, Brown’s comment was one of the most re-tweeted of the day on the topic of Prop 8.
After Walker’s ruling, Brown followed with another Tweet, quoting social reformer Frances Wright: “Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.”
