The California Supreme Court has all but sealed the deal for marriage equality in the state.

The state Supreme Court rejected the latest attempt by Protectmarriage.com to reinstate Proposition 8, "ending the last remaining legal challenge to same-sex marriage in 2008," according to the Los Angeles Times. California's Proposition 8 law banning marriage equality was struck down in June as unconstitutional. Voters approved Prop. 8 in 2008, just months after the state Supreme Court struck down the ban on marriage equality the first time around.

Protectmarriage.com has been a major sponsor in defense of Prop. 8, challenging the courts time and time again. After the ruling in June, the sponsor asked the Supreme Court to place a hold on same-sex marriages but was denied.

The journey for marriage equality in the United States has been tumultuous because of the variation in laws by state. While some states have marriage equality, the federal Defense of Marriage Act has not yet been fully repealed and gay couples have not been able to get the same federal benefits at heterosexual couples.

The Supreme Court this past June also decided that DOMA was unconstitutional. Only certain elements of DOMA have been repealed thus far, but federal benefits have improved and President Obama acknowledged that it was a step in the right direction.

"I applaud the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act," Obama said in a public statement in June. "This was discrimination enshrined in law. It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal -- and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well

Obama released the statement while he was aboard Air Force One en route to Africa.