Feb. 27, 2004
By DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is planning to ask the court Friday whether San Francisco's issuing of same-sex marriage licenses violates state law, which designates marriage as only between heterosexual couples.
Lockyer has said that he personally believes San Francisco is violating state law, but that the high court should decide the controversy.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says he's following the California Constitution's equal protection clause, which demands that all people be treated equally. Newsom also says California's marital law banning same-sex marriages is unconstitutional.
More than 3,400 same-sex couple have been married in San Francisco in the past two weeks, including the first high-profile celebrity on Thursday. Former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell married her longtime girlfriend Thursday, taking what she called a proud stand for gay civil rights.
"I want to thank the city of San Francisco for this amazing stance the mayor has taken for all the people here, not just us but all the thousands and thousands of loving, law-abiding couples," O'Donnell said, after she Kelli Carpenter emerged from their brief ceremony inside Newsom's office in City Hall.
On Wednesday, opponents of gay marriage asked the state Supreme Court to block San Francisco from issuing any more same-sex marriage licenses and to nullify the thousands of weddings already performed. Two groups previously failed to get the weddings immediately stopped in Superior Court.
The court did not indicate whether it would even hear the case, let alone immediately act to block the city from issuing the licenses. California's justices usually are loathe to take cases until they work their way up through the lower courts, which this case has not done.
Also Thursday, a conservative group called for Lockyer and Newsom to be removed from office. The Sacramento-based Pro-Family Law Center filed a legal action with the attorney general's office calling for their removal for breaching their oaths of office.
O'Donnell and Carpenter were married by Treasurer Susan Leal, one of the city's high profile lesbian elected officials.
The newlyweds walked hand in hand down the grand marble staircase in the rotunda to thunderous applause from hundreds of spectators.
O'Donnell told the crowd that she and Carpenter, who have been together six years and are raising four children, decided to dash to San Francisco after hearing President Bush endorse a proposed constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage Tuesday.
"We were both inspired to come here after the sitting president made the vile and hateful comments he made," O'Donnell said.
The couple left New York at 5 a.m in order to make their 1 p.m. appointment in San Francisco to pick up their marriage license.
"One thought ran through my mind on the plane out here — with liberty and justice for all," O'Donnell said, drawing even more cheers as she held up her hand in a peace sign. She and Carpenter then kissed for the cameras.
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