A ruling on whether California should legalize same-sex marriage is due on Thursday from the state’s supreme court, CNN reports. If the court rules in favor of the gay marriage, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can wed.

“What happens in California, either way, will have a huge impact around the nation. It will set the tone,” Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California, declared, quoted by the Associated Press.

“If California issues a decision legalizing same-sex marriage, it will reinvigorate the fight for same-sex marriage” nationally, said Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. “But if they affirm that marriage is for a man and a woman, then what has happened is that Massachusetts is leading a one-state parade,” he added, according to the same source.

San Francisco officials in 2004 allowed gay couples in the city to marry. The first couple to wed then was 80-year-old Phyllis Lyon and 83-year-old Dorothy Martin, lovers for 50 years. “We have a right just like anyone else to get married to the person we want to get married to,” Lyon declared at the time.

The state of California already offers same-sex couples who register as domestic partners the same legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses, including the right to divorce and to sue for child support.

The decision will be posted at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme