Shared item
1 shares
Cali court tells homosexuals "FINE. Rings and white picket fences for all y'all." - NeoGAF
via www.neogaf.com by (author unknown) on May 14, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MC8M.DTL&tsp=1
Originally Posted by sfgate.com:(05-14) 16:46 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- More than four years after San Francisco defied state marriage laws by allowing nearly 4,000 same-sex couples to wed at City Hall, the state Supreme Court is set to decide today whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California.
But the decision, due at 10 a.m., may not be the last word. Conservative religious organizations have submitted more than 1.1 million signatures for an initiative that would amend the state Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. If at least 694,354 signatures are found to be valid, a tally that is due by mid-June, the measure would go on the November ballot and, if approved by voters, would override any court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.
Californians have already voted once, in 2000, to reaffirm the 1977 state law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The 2000 initiative, Proposition 22, was not a constitutional amendment.
The marriage case is the most prominent and politically explosive dispute to come before the court in decades. The justices have largely managed to stay out of the public spotlight since 1986, when voters removed Chief Justice Rose Bird and two liberal colleagues who had joined her in overturning nearly all death sentences to come before the court.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose order authorizing the City Hall weddings started the chain of events leading to today's ruling, said the case represents progress, regardless of the result.
"Even if we are not successful, we will have pushed the ball forward," said Newsom, who was testifying to a congressional committee Wednesday in Washington and scrapped a planned trip to Chicago to return to San Francisco today.Shared by: