Gay and Lesbian Couples Expected to Join S.F.'s Appeal on Gay Marriage
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SAN FRANCISCO, CA (AP) -- The city of San Francisco is taking the issue of same-sex marriage to the state's highest court.
A month after an appeals court ruled against same-sex marriage, the city filed an appeal yesterday with the California Supreme Court.
About a dozen gay and lesbian couples who also sued the state are expected to file their own appeal.
The plaintiffs argue that laws authorizing marriages as only between a man and a woman are unconstitutional.
A lower court agreed the laws were unconstitutional, but the appeals court reversed that decision last month.
The California Supreme Court 90 days to decide if it will take the case.
If it does, a decision on same-sex marriage is about a year or more away.
If the court doesn't take the case, the ruling against gay marriage will stand.
The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled in a 2-1 vote that, among other things, it was not the judiciary's role to define marriage
- As 61 percent of California voters in 2000 declared marriage as a union between a man and a woman under Proposition 22.
The appeals court also ruled that the state's existing marriage laws do not discriminate because gays and lesbians get most all the rights of marriage the state confers to heterosexual married couples.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom put the marriage debate in the national spotlight by allowing same-sex couples to get married at City Hall in 2004.
California's justices halted the wedding spree and voided the 4,037 marriage licenses while sidestepping the core constitutional question, ruling the mayor did not have authority to make marriage law. The justices, however, invited a challenge to whether banning same-sex marriage was discrimination, a challenge that reached the court.