February 14, 2004
Photo: Richard (L) and Michael Butler kiss after getting married in San Francisco's City Hall, California, on Friday. San Francisco officials married a steady stream of gay and lesbian couples in a 'first-in-the-nation' move that defies state law recently passed by voters calling marriage a union of man and woman. REUTERS/Kimberly White
SAN FRANCISCO — Gay and lesbian couples planned to celebrate Valentine's Day with weddings at City Hall as officials continued to defy state law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex partners.
The nationally unprecedented wedding march began Thursday morning and by late Friday, 665 same-sex couples had been wed.
The weddings were expected to continue throughout President's Day weekend as city officials try to accommodate couples that have come from all over the country to be married.
The decision by city officials to stay open over the holiday weekend came after a judge denied a petition Friday to block more licenses from being granted.
The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund asked a Superior Court judge to issue a stay that would prevent San Francisco officials from issuing more licenses and to invalidate the ones that had already been recorded.
The organization represents a California group seeking to a ballot initiative approved by voters in 2000 that said the state would only recognize marriages between a man and a woman.
"I think the court should set the example that municipal anarchy is unacceptable," said lawyer Robert Tyler.
The judge said court procedures require them to return Tuesday to properly make their request.
A second group, Campaign for California Families, also filed a legal challenge to the city's authority to marry gay and lesbian couples and secured a Tuesday hearing.
"No one made the mayor of San Francisco king; he can't play God. He cannot trash the vote of the people," Randy Thomasson, director of the Campaign for California Families, said at a news conference in Los Angeles.
Photo: Sergio Sarmiento, right, hugs his partner Christopher Rigdon after the pair was turned down for a marriage license in Houston Friday, Feb. 13, 2004. About 30 gay couples paraded into the county clerk's office to request marriage licenses to protest the Defense of Marriage Act which prevents Texas from legally recognizing same-sex unions. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
The marble passageways inside City Hall resembled a Las Vegas wedding chapel as much as a seat of government, as a steady stream of couples took their vows. City supervisors, a school board member and clerks from other offices were pressed into duty as deputy marriage commissioners to keep up with the demand.
Couples toasted each other with sparkling apple cider and left under canopies of rice tossed by cheering onlookers.
"We've been together for 21 years, so waiting this long is nothing," said Albert Weaver, 51, as he and his partner, Alfred Entizne, 48, waited for their turn to wed after spending three hours in line to obtain the license.
Aside from the lawsuits, the newly married couples may face other obstacles. After a marriage license is recorded by county officials, it is sent to the state Office of Vital Records.
San Francisco officials have insisted the licenses they have handed out are legally binding, although they are revised to be "gender-neutral." But a deputy city attorney acknowledged that the state may not accept them.
San Francisco appears to be the first city in the nation to officially support same-sex marriage licenses; city clerks in Arizona and Colorado in 1975 issued licenses to gay and lesbian couples that were later revoked or declared void.
Emboldened by the weddings and the prospect of the nation's first legal same-sex marriages in Massachusetts in May, gay couples went to courthouses around the nation Thursday and Friday to demand the right to marry. They were quickly turned away.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Friday that administration lawyers were exploring ways to block same-sex marriages that may occur in the state before a proposed constitutional ban could take effect.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November that it is unconstitutional to bar gay couples from marriage -- a decision reaffirmed by the court last week. Under the decision, the nation's first legally sanctioned gay marriages are scheduled to begin in mid-May.
Lawmakers are proposing a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and the Legislature resumes its deliberations of amendments on March 11. Romney aides said no decision would be made until after then.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111414,00.html