Posted on 07/09/2006 10:27:57 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
In nearly two years since John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney took part in this city's same-sex marriage rebellion, the couple has filed three rounds of tax returns, buried a mother, vacationed in Europe and attended five weddings - four involving a bride and a groom.
These are the typical joys, sorrows and rituals of couples who have been together for nearly two decades. Yet for Lewis and Gaffney, one of 4,037 pairs whose San Francisco-issued marriage licenses were invalidated by the California Supreme Court, daily domesticity also brings reminders of the legal rights they do not have and are suing to secure.
"We took a vow at San Francisco City Hall to be together for better or worse," said Gaffney, 43. "It's hard because while we wait, we wait in a separate and unequal status."
The multi-pronged effort to make gay marriage legal in California inches another step toward resolution Monday, when a state appeals court in San Francisco will consider whether a trial judge erred in declaring the state's existing marriage laws unconstitutional.
The First District Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear six hours of arguments in as many related cases - four of them filed by the city and lawyers for 20 couples seeking the right to wed, and two brought by groups who want to maintain the status quo barring same-sex unions.
Although any forthcoming ruling is expected to be appealed to the state Supreme Court, advocates on both sides say the stakes remain high at the intermediate court. New York's highest court upheld that state's one man-one woman marriage laws on Thursday, shifting the gay rights movement's focus to other jurisdictions that might join Massachusetts in legalizing gay marriage.
High courts in New Jersey and Washington state already are deliberating cases brought by same-sex couples. But it is California, home to more same-sex couples than any other state and where the courts and the Legislature have created one of the nation's most gay-friendly environments, where a ruling could have the most impact.
"California is the most diverse state in the country, and the gay community has achieved a kind of visibility and integration here that is unlike any state," said Jennifer Pizer, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund who is representing gay couples in both California and Washington. "People in California, including judges and legislatures, have had the opportunity to see our essential sameness."
The appeals that will be heard Monday were brought by California's attorney general and two groups opposed to gay marriage. They followed San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer's March 2005 ruling that the state's existing marriage laws violate the civil rights of gays and lesbians by denying them "the basic human right to marry a person of one's choice" and discriminating on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.
Deputy Attorney General Christopher Krueger said he plans to offer the appeals court the same argument he presented to Kramer: that until lawmakers rewrite the marriage statutes, California should adhere to a traditional definition of matrimony while offering a separate domestic partnership option that confers most of the same rights and benefits to same-sex couples.
"In defending the law, we are saying it's rational to defer to the legislative process in setting policy in such a sensitive area," Krueger said.
Following Kramer's decision, the Legislature last year became the first lawmaking body in the nation to legalize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, saying it was up to voters or the courts, not lawmakers, to settle the contentious issue.
Also challenging the trial court's reasoning are the Campaign for Children and Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund. They are arguing that Kramer exceeded his when he struck down a 2000 voter initiative that prevented California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
"That is not a judicial function," said Glen Lavy, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund who represents the Proposition 22 group. "The people voted overwhelmingly to retain the long-accepted definition of marriage in 2000."
Mathew Staver, who represents Campaign for Children and Families, said the fact that New York's judges cited marriage role in promoting procreation makes him optimistic that a California court would accept similar reasoning.
"Having this decision from New York state's highest court is a huge momentum builder for our argument," Staver said. "New York is a big state, it's an influential state, it's not a conservative court. Yet it voted 4-2 to uphold marriage and it did it on the same rationale we are arguing in California."
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said he remains confident that California's previous support for gay rights would inform the court's work, despite last week's setback in New York.
Besides offering gay couples domestic partnership rights, the state has led the nation in making it easier for gay couples to adopt children and to be protected from housing and job discrimination.
"If the state believes, as it says it does, that gay people and our families are entitled to the same protections as heterosexuals, there is no justification for denying us the fundamental right to marry," Minter said.
After seeing gay friends legally marry in Massachusetts last year, Gaffney said the passage of time makes him eager to see the issue move forward in his own state.
"It reminded us of what the lawsuit is all about here, what our friends in Massachusetts already have, which is the ability to get married and then get on with their happily married lives," he said.
Nothing but propaganda from our friends at AP.
I'm curious, just who in this instance is "the state." Is it Arnold's office or Lockyer's? In either case, both are sworn to uphold State law, which is currently Prop. 22. So the real question is, which office is breaking the law and which officer is violating their oath (which doesn't seem to mean anything any more).
why can't they argue in private like hetero couples?
An appeals court in San Francisco on Monday will hear five hours of oral arguments on the constitutionality of California's prohibition on same-sex marriages, and justices have agreed to allow the proceedings to be televised on the California Channel, a statewide public affairs cable network.
The court has grouped together six separate lawsuits on the issue, four filed on behalf of same-sex couples seeking the right to marry and two filed by advocates of traditional marriages.
Arguments in the four cases seeking the right to same-sex marriage will be broadcast live from 9 a.m. to noon. The two cases seeking to affirm state law requiring marriage to be between a man and a woman will be heard from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Justices in the First Appellate District will have 90 days after the oral arguments to issue a written decision on the issue.
Monday's hearings follow two significant legal setbacks this week for advocates of same-sex marriage. New York's highest court rejected arguments that such a ban violates the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians, and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld an amendment to the state constitution barring same-sex marriage.
In California, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco ruled that restricting marriages violated "the basic human right to marry a person of one's choice."
That ruling has been put on hold, pending resolution of the appeal.
However the appeals court rules on the cases before it on Monday, the issue is almost certainly destined for the California Supreme Court.
The state Supreme Court directly intervened in 2004 to decide on the legality of marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples earlier that year by San Francisco by invalidating them.
It also decided at the time to allow the essential question, of whether same-sex marriage bans are constitutional, to proceed through the normal appellate process.
In addition to being televised over the cable network, the oral arguments will also be available for viewing over the Internet at http://www.CalChannel.com.
Yet another.
The way this article is written lead me to believe they will use recently passed legislation arguing that since the law now says that A, B, C and D are okay, then gay marriage should be also. Activists have been working hard on "Civil Rights Acts" and extending definitions of the protected classes included in the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) into many other laws.
YUP -the delusional pushing delusion will not stop until stopped. The homosexual agenda legal assault on reality by groups such as Lambda Legal is tantamount to legalistic terrorism -ALL they need is one successful judicial activist attack e.g. Massachusetts AND as such they will continue orchestrating and shopping around cases and challenges REGARDLESS how often they lose UNTIL they are stopped...
The Federal Marriage Amendment is an effective way to stop the homosexual agenda "legal" terrorists once and for all...
And the strange thing is how faux conservatives - here and elsewhere - criticize us for fighting back; as though we're "obsessed" with a privacy matter of little consequence. That we should just do nothing and it'll all work out all right.
Doing nothing has gotten us where we are today.
The multi-pronged effort to make gay marriage legal in California inches another step toward resolution Monday, when a state appeals court in San Francisco will consider whether a trial judge erred in declaring the state's existing marriage laws unconstitutional.
The "multi-pronged effort" rightly should be identified as just what it is -an assualt on society. But one aspect of the "homosexual agenda" -an agenda promoting delusion propped up with rainbowed "gay" platitudes premised in lies and propaganda -an agenda focused on homosexual sex and an agenda intent on self-destruction and destruction of society...
Interesting that homosexuals spent years telling the government to stay out of their sex life only to now demand that the government take notice. Homosexual men already get more than their share of tax dollars because of their perversion to combat AIDS. Frankly, if what they do in their bedroom is not my business I fail to see why the diseases they aquire while in said bedroom are my business. Regardless, what they can never be by the decree of God, Darwin, Mother Nature, or whomever you wish to blame, is a family in any genuine sense of the word. They are friends who have sex. Lots of people are friends who do not have sex. Why should the government discriminate against them? Why should the gov't discriminate against single people? As long as you have a word that is clearly defined you will have things that are outside that definition. If you add gays to marriage you still discriminate against groups and individuals. Which brings us back to why. Why did the government ever start to recognize marriage in the first place? I'll tell you why. It's because God gives to every child a mother and a father and that's the only way this thing called humanity can continue on the face of the earth. Homosexuality is a big fat zero in the big picture of life. It brings us disease and that's it.
I am always amazed and saddened at how Proposition 22 in California is hardly ever mentioned in these articles.
That proposition says that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." And under the California constitution, a law passed by the people has a higher legal status than a bill passed by the legislature.
They always say how the Dem. legislature passed a gay marriage bill but it was vetoed. It's questionable if the legislature has the right to even try to pass a gay marriage bill until the court rules anyway.
The AP story says that Prop. 22 denies recognition of out of state gay marriage. Mark Leno and his pals in the legislature say that gives them the right to pass a gay marriage bill, but even that has to be determined in court.
But do you see any of this in the AP story???? no......
Agenda driven journalism??????? you make the call.
"In nearly two years since John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney took part in this city's same-sex marriage rebellion, the couple has filed three rounds of tax returns, buried a mother, vacationed in Europe and attended five weddings - four involving a bride and a groom."
And lack of marriage has . . . prevented them from burying a mother? Vacationing in Europe? Attending five weddings? Oh . . . I see. It would prevent the tax returns. I see. It's all about money. These dopey twats insist they love each other so much and that lack of marriage deprives them of the fullness of their relationship . . . so does that mean that for all these years they've been carrying on without marriage, they really couldn't "love" each other. It's a self-defeating argument. They were shacking up already. The only thing they care about now is the monetary aspect of it. But surely, these two dolls don't need to worry about money. After all . . . they can vacation in Europe. Simply repulsive.
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