Clint Eastwood urges Supreme Court to end California's ban on same-sex marriage

Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood has joined more than 100 conservatives in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down California's ban on same-sex marriage, according to MSNBC.

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson were also among those who signed the amici curiae, or “friends of the Court,” brief challenging California's Proposition 8 in Hollingsworth v. Perry. The law was enacted by California voters in 2008 and has been at the center of a fierce legal battle over marriage rights ever since.

The brief argues that "marriage is strengthened, not undermined" by allowing same-sex couples to legally wed. There is also no fact-based reason, according to the brief, to deny same-sex couples the rights and protections available to married same sex couples.

"The denial of civil marriage to same-sex couples does not mean that their children will be raised by married opposite-sex couples," the brief notes. "Rather, the choice here is between allowing same-sex couples to marry, thereby conferring on their children the benefits of marriage, and depriving those children of married parents altogether."

Noting the Supreme Court's ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which struck down laws that prohibited interracial marriage, the brief also argues that marriage is a fundamental right.

"Proposition 8 ran afoul of our constitutional order by submitting to popular referendum a fundamental right that there is no legitimate, fact-based reason to deny to same-sex couples," the brief states.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Perry on March 26. Dozens of groups, including the U.S. government, have called on the Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8.

Eastwood first offered his opinion of same sex marriage in 2011.

“These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage?” Eastwood opined. “I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of.”