Evan Low, the openly gay mayor of the city of Campbell, has applauded Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker for striking down the California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. “I am delighted that the federal court recognized the inherent inequality and injustice of Proposition 8,” Low told AsianWeek. “You can not have a subclass of people created under the United States Constitution, the highest law of the land.”

Born in 1983, Low, a fourth-generation Asian American, is one of the youngest Asian-American mayors in the country. He grew up in San Jose, Calif. and moved to Campbell in 2003. According to the blog 8Asians.com, in a speech he gave at a rally celebrating the verdict at the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose, he talked about discrimination across generations, describing how his great-grandfather was discriminated against as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act. His grandfather was discriminated against because of laws against “Mongoloids” owning property. Even his mother would have faced discrimination in many states because her second marriage was an interracial one, to an Irish American. Finally, Prop. 8 discriminated against gays and lesbians.

Though an appeal has already been filed to reinstate Prop. 8, Low is optimistic, telling AsianWeek that he is “confident that Judge Walker’s decision will be affirmed by higher courts.”