Court declines request to stop gay marriages
The California Supreme Court has declined a request by the state attorney general to immediately shut down San Francisco’s gay weddings and to nullify the nearly 3,500 marriages already performed.
At the prodding of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Bill Lockyer asked the court to intervene in the emotionally charged debate while justices consider the legality of the marriages.
But the justices declined on Friday, and told the city and a conservative group that opposes gay marriages to file new legal briefs in one week’s time.
Lockyer has been under fire from every side since San Francisco, under the directive of Mayor Gavin Newsom, began issuing marriage licences to gay couples two weeks ago. More than 3,400 couples have tied the knot since then.
“It’s a matter of state-wide concern and voters want to know, Californians want to know and couples that participated in ceremonies need to know the status of their relationship,” Lockyer said.
The court challenge came as 21 gay couples exchanged wedding vows on the steps of the village hall in the small college town of New Paltz, New York, opening up another front in the growing national debate over gay marriage.
In Washington, President George Bush defended his decision to seek a constitutional amendment outlawing gay weddings, calling marriage between men and women “the ideal”.
In New York state, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer refused a request for an injunction against the New Paltz ceremonies, noting that such a measure should only be a last resort. He did not issue an opinion on whether the marriages were legal.
“The validity of the marriages and the legality of the mayor’s action will be determined in due course in the courts,” Spitzer said.
A county clerk in New Mexico issued 26 licences earlier this month before the state attorney general declared them invalid. More than 30 gay couples in Iowa City, Iowa, were denied marriage licences Friday by an openly lesbian county official who said she must uphold the law.
“What we’re witnessing in America today is the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country’s had in a generation,” said New Paltz’ Green Party mayor, Jason West.
The rush to the altar by gay couples this month is rooted in a November decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled that prohibiting same-sex marriages violated that state’s constitution. The court reaffirmed the decision this month, clearing the way for full-fledged gay marriages by mid-May.
The issue has sparked intense debate nationwide and spilled into the presidential race. Bush, citing the Massachusetts decision and the parade of weddings in San Francisco, backed a federal constitutional amendment Tuesday to bar such marriages. “A few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilisation,” Bush said.
In statehouses across the United States, lawmakers are taking a closer look at their constitutions to see if they could be construed to permit same-sex marriages, even in states where laws now bar them.
