GAY MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA….You know, I’m all in favor of the city of San Francisco issuing marriage certificates to gay couples. It’s a wonderful symbolic act of civil defiance and I think it’s great.
[San Francisco Mayor Gavin] Newsom’s victory came when a Superior Court judge denied a request by a conservative group for an injunction that would have stopped San Francisco officials from granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
….”There’s a great deal of emotional energy involved in whether same-sex marriage should be allowed,” said Judge James L. Warren. The request for a court order to block the marriages “requires careful and thoughtful consideration,” he said as he scheduled another hearing for Tuesday.
Granted, all he did was postpone issuing an injunction for a few days, so it’s probably no big deal, but this is a case where the law seems (unfortunately) crystal clear. Here is the full text of Proposition 22, passed with a 63% margin of victory in 2000 by the voters of California:
SECTION 1. This act may be cited as the “California Defense of Marriage Act.”
SECTION 2. Section 308.5 is added to the Family Code, to read:
308.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
This really doesn’t seem to leave much wiggle room to me, especially since it was passed only four years ago and therefore takes precedence over older and more generic “equal protection” provisions in the constitution. I’ll be curious to see what the judge says when he issues a full ruling next week.
