A New York state judge banned a mayor from presiding over same-sex marriages on Friday, while San Francisco officials argued that refusal to accept gay marriages would be unconstitutional — all part of battle over gay rights that is moving to the courtroom and state houses across the United States.
Meanwhile, a conservative backlash in what many are calling the ”culture wars” gathered pace, with lawmakers in two Midwestern states giving preliminary approval to measures that would amend each state’s Constitution to explicitly ban same-sex marriages or civil unions.
The fight in defence of traditional marriage is likely to become a political issue this election year, with President George Bush already calling for an amendment to the US Constitution banning same-sex marriage.
A New York state judge issued a temporary restraining order against Jason West, the Mayor of New Paltz, New York, who has solemnised two dozen same-sex unions in the past week.
The temporary injunction was issued at the request of a conservative Christian group, the Liberty Counsel, saying that West as clearly in breach of his obligation to uphold state laws.
West pledged to abide by the ruling, but said he would continue to do what he could ”to advance the cause” of gays and lesbians seeking official recognition for their unions.
”This is a critical moment in the birth of a movement and it is important to find potential allies,” he said in a statement. ”But the movement that is flowering here now does not depend, and never has depended, upon the actions of a single mayor in a small village.”
On Friday, the gay civil rights group Lambda Legal filed a challenge with the state’s Supreme Court on behalf of a gay couple who just hours before had been denied a marriage license at New York City Hall.
The suit on behalf of Daniel Hernandez and Nevin Cohen argued that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the state constitution’s guarantee of equality for all New Yorkers, denying them the right to chose a marriage partner.
The judicial challenge could take a year or more to work its way through the courts, but gay-rights activists, buoyed by the support of a handful of maverick officials and a landmark legal victory in Massachusetts last year, are keen to press their advantage.
San Francisco’s newly elected Democratic Mayor, Gavin Newsome, touched off the current revolt in February when he defied state laws and authorised city officials to hand out licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
Other municipalities in New Mexico, Oregon and New York state followed, some with the blessing of their state attorneys, other, as in the case of West, in defiance of them.
In each case, the mavericks have argued that the gay community’s rights to equal treatment under the state Constitution outweigh legal considerations.
The argument has some legal legs: the Massachusetts Supreme Court struck down that state’s ”ban” on gay marriage in November last year, and lawyers for San Francisco made the same argument in legal briefs filed on Friday to that state’s Supreme Court.
City lawyers told the California Supreme Court there was nothing in the state Constitution that required local officials to obey laws they believe are unconstitutional and prejudice their citizens.
Rather than taking the law into their own hands, Newsom was upholding the law by respecting the constitutional rights of all its citizens, the city argued.
San Francisco officials responded to petitions filed last week by California’s top legal official and a Christian group asking the state’s highest court to immediately halt the spreading marriage wave.
But the California Supreme Court declined to issue any immediate orders, instead simply accepting the sparring legal briefs.
The city has wed 3 632 same-sex couples in its three-week marital blitz that is spreading as cities across the country begin defying laws outlawing gay marriage.
The Alliance Defence Fund, a conservative group that is furiously challenging gay marriages in San Francisco and in a county of the northwestern state of Oregon, argued in its Supreme Court brief that the city cannot overrule state law and hundreds of years of tradition.
The Alliance Defence Fund on Friday also sued Multnomah County in the Oregon after it began issuing marriage licences to gay couples on Wednesday.
In the midwestern states of Kansas and Wisconsin, laws already proscribe same-sex unions.
But conservatives lawmakers in both states have given preliminary approval to measures that would amend each state’s Constitution to explicitly ban same-sex marriages or civil unions. — Sapa-AFP