Out gay California Sen. Mark Leno has introduced a bill that would, if passed, recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of California before Prop 8 was passed last November.

With this bill, Leno is seeking to “merely codify” the California Supreme Court decision that, while de-legalizing future same-sex marriages explicitly left same-sex marriages performed before Prop 8 passed alone. Leno continued, “We don’t interpret. We don’t extrapolate. We don’t extend. We just place in statute what the court said in the majority opinion.”

But Carol Hogan, of the Sacramento-based California Catholic Conference, thinks the Supreme Court didn’t address out-of-state marriages. “If you can read plain English,” she said Tuesday, “it sounds to me like [same-sex marriages] are not valid and recognized.”

Thank God the ruling wasn’t written in plain English!

The bill faces its first test today in the Democrat-dominated Assembly Judiciary Committee.