How times change. Jerry Brown has won much praise for his legal attack on Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. But as many have pointed out, it wasn't that long ago when backing gay marriage would be a lot more out of the mainstream. Today, the San Francisco Chronicle has a case in point, and it involves actions by Brown himself three decades ago:

When Brown was governor of California, he played a crucial role on the same issue -- he signed the landmark bill that changed the state's definition of marriage from a contract between two persons to one specifically between a man and a woman.

At the time, proponents of the bill praised it as one that would "outlaw marriages between homosexuals."

The author of that bill, former Republican Assemblyman Bruce Nestande of Orange County, told The Chronicle this week that he wrote AB607 to specifically limit marriage to being between a man and a woman. He won support from conservatives such as state Sen. John Briggs of Fullerton, who would later author the notorious but unsuccessful Briggs Initiative that attempted to ban gays from working in public schools. ...

Brown said Thursday that his decision to sign the bill, without comment, was largely technical -- and "totally appropriate" for the time.