The following comes from a February 26 posting on the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert site.

Former  GOP gubernatorial hopefully Meg Whitman has changed course on California’s ban on same-sex marriage, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.

Whitman, who supported Proposition 8 and vowed to defend the voter-approved law against legal challenges during her 2010 gubernatorial bid, is one of dozens high-profile Republicans who signed a legal brief supporting gay marriage that will be submitted this week, according to The New York Times.

The Hewlett-Packard chief executive issued a statement through her LinkedIn page saying that she has come “to embrace same-sex marriage after a period of careful review and reflection.”

“As a candidate for governor three years ago, I supported Proposition 8. At the time, I believed the people of California had weighed in on this question and that overturning the will of the people was the wrong approach,” she wrote. “The facts and arguments presented during the legal process since then have had a profound impact on my thinking.”

She wrote in the statement that the brief she signed argues there is “no legitimate, fact-based reason for providing different legal treatment of committed relationships between same-sex couples.” Allowing same-sex marriage to stand in California, she wrote, will “strengthen our nation as a whole.”

Read more here.