Calif. High Court To Rule On Gay Marriage

Will Consider Whether Ban Is Discriminatory & Therefore Unconstitutional

(AP)  The California Supreme Court unanimously agreed Wednesday to decide whether the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates a constitutional ban on discrimination.

The justices' move sets aside a lower court's decision in October that upheld state laws banning gays and lesbians from marrying one another. The outcome is not likely until late next year.

Massachusetts is the only state that authorizes same-sex marriage.

The justices are reviewing an October decision by the San Francisco-based 1st District Court of Appeal, which ruled 2-1 that California 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 that wedding spree and voided the 4,037 marriage licenses while sidestepping the core constitutional question. They ruled 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 Wednesday after it meandered through the trial and appellate courts.

Whether prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying violates the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians is the biggest question surrounding marriage the California Supreme Court has faced since 1948. That year, seven different justices became the first court in the nation to declare laws banning mixed-race marriages unconstitutional discrimination.

The same-sex case was brought by about 20 same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco. Had the court not taken the case, the lower court's decision would have stood.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the city is "extremely gratified" the justices are reviewing the case.

"It's perhaps the major civil rights issue of our time," he said.

Randy Thomasson, spokesman for Voteyesmarriage.com, a group opposing same-sex marriage, said he was disappointed with the court's move.

"If the law ain't broke, don't fix it," he said. "This is bad news for marriage and the voters of California who already passed a state law reaffirming that marriage is a natural and beautiful institution between a man and a woman."

The court's recent record on gay and lesbian rights is mixed. In several landmark cases, the justices have concluded that gays and lesbians have the same rights as married couples to sue for wrongful death, to adopt children and to seek child support from former partners.

Last year, the court unanimously ruled, under a sweeping domestic partner law that took effect Jan. 1, 2005, businesses must offer spousal discounts to same-sex domestic partners if it offers those benefits to married couples.

"The Legislature has made it abundantly clear that an important goal of the Domestic Partner Act is to create substantial legal equality between domestic partners and spouses," wrote Justice Carlos Moreno, the court's only Democrat, appointed in 2001 by Gov. Gray Davis.

But in 1998, before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger-appointee Carol Corrigan and Moreno took the bench, the seven-member court unanimously sided with the Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which barred an openly gay man from being an assistant scoutmaster because of his sexual orientation. The justices held that California civil rights laws did not apply to the Scouts, and the Scouts had a First Amendment right to associate with whomever it chose.

The justices, however, were careful not to condone the Boy Scouts. "The resolution of this matter," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote, "does not turn on our personal views of the wisdom or morality of the actions or policies that are challenged in this case."

None of those cases, however, has focused squarely on whether gays and lesbians have a right to marry as barred by 1977 legislation and a 2000 voter-approved measure. In Proposition 22, 61 percent of voters declared marriage as a union between a man and woman.

The closest the court came to deciding the issue was in its 2004 ruling that Newsom overstepped his authority by issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples. In a 5-2 vote, the court also nullified the marriages.

Justices Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, a 1994 Republican appointed by Wilson, and Justice Joyce Kennard, a Republican appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1989, wrote separately that the court should not nullify the marriages. A decision on that, they said, should await a final ruling on the marriages' constitutionality.

[pdtan-2009]

And for you magic hands, you can't prove that god exists, and I can not prove that he does not. So do not bring your religious idiocy into a debate where religion is not the issue. Some christians believe that god knows your heart and he will forgive if you are true to his word. And catholics, believe if you are gay you will fall in to a fiery hell, where you will suffer and burn and torture, until the end of time, but remember he does love you. I am reserving my hope that when you die, and amazingly you get to the gate, and god walks out to speak to you personally, and tells you what a wonderful person you have been, but you know you judged gay people for being bad people, there not. The only reason that was in the bible was because Adam first tried to have intercourse with a snake, so I had to make sure that intercourse could be between a man and a woman, because how in the hell would the rest of us be alive, if Adam was gay. Point being keep your God B.S. to yourself and do not bring it into a debate about a silly thing like marriage

[pdtan-2009]

Close, but I have actually graduated a year early, that is a year before no child left behind was put into affect. Which is funny because first there was a head start for every child, now there is no child left behind. Sounds like someone is losing some ground. I'm sorry Agnim, I forgot we lived in America where we used to have the freedom speech, I guess that is long since gone now that we have Volunteering, community pricks like yourself. What the hell do you think America is based on... 3 seconds should be enough time, capatilism!!! Where everyone thinks for them selves, and does not worry how there decisions affect other people. I may be young, and I may not have all the experience of life you older folk have, but I know what this country "WAS" based upon, and that is doing as much stupid *** as you *** well please, it's called freedom. Let the *** get married, and let people raise their own children stop butting into other peoples lives, and worry about your own horrible excuse of an existence. ***!!!!!

[agnim]

"I am only 19 years old, and if this great country keeps abolishing our freedoms, we will become a socialist country soon enough. HELL IN A HAND BASKET!!!!!

Posted by PDTAN at 07:01 PM : Dec 21, 2006"
19 years dumb.
Another victim of 'no child left behind'. LOL

Every citizen also has responsibilities and obligations to the society in addition to his self-centered desires.

Being 19 and being overly self-centered alone is a bad start for one who will soon be mature in age.

[magichands4]

Same-*** marriage or gay marriage: This is the beginning of the end of America...



"And the great issue now of homosexuality in your country, that shall be on the balance that Michael holds. Unless this balance is evened by removing this evil from your country and bringing in just laws to prevent the spread of homosexuality, you cannot be saved; your country cannot be saved. Because I repeat again, as I have repeated in the past: When a country has given itself over to immorality and all pleasures of the flesh, and abominations of the flesh, then that country will fall! If you do not believe Me, My children, I say: You will read your history books, and you will find out that there was a Sodom and Gomorrah. And what did We do to that abominable city, Sodom? We destroyed it! And what did We do to Gomorrah? We destroyed it! And We destroyed all who did not follow the plan for their redemption." Jesus, November 1, 1985




.

[pdtan-2009]

I agree with the majority of you, most people that are against gay marriage are either religious zealots, or feel as if it is a threat to the marriage they had between their husband or wife. The truth is gay marriage is a non-violent act, and there for should be a freedom of choice. if you want to marry a man and you are also a man, go right ahead, and if you don't like it, well what about our brothers and sister over in Iraq getting shot at, maybe focus your attention to the middle east instead of our homeland. Same goes with smoking, doing drugs, wearing a seatbelt, putting a child in a car seat. These are all decisions people need to make on their own, and if the get hurt or god forbid die, then the deserved it. (no offense to any of you that lost a son or dad in a car accident, and they did wear there seatbelt, maybe it would have been a quicker death if they have not.)

I am only 19 years old, and if this great country keeps abolishing our freedoms, we will become a socialist country soon enough. HELL IN A HAND BASKET!!!!!

[agnim]

"Agnim...Have you ever been told that you hate in others what you dislike in yourself.

Posted by mrshyatt at 03:04 PM : Dec 21, 2006"

Right, that is the reason alert citizens want those engaging in societally worthless behaviors out of the general population: Those citizens are also engaging in societally worthless behaviors themselves and hate it in themselves.

By your weak mind and mentally mixed up thinking, societies should do away with police and judges because they are deviants who just want to remove other deviants from the general population.

My turn.

Have you ever been told that any hate you experience in cyberspace is YOUR OWN HATE?
Think on these things, not that your mind is that capable.

[mrshyatt]

Agnim...Have you ever been told that you hate in others what you dislike in yourself.

[agnim]

Marriage has always been practiced and understood IN ALL SOCIETIES to be the rituializing of mating -- male-female union.

And marriage HAS NEVER BEEN practiced nor understood to be anything but the ritualizing of the male-female union.

On the basis of precedent alone, this f@ggot *** belongs in the toilet, along with the beastly behavior of those sick and mentally mixed up individuals who are too lost and confused about mating -- male-female union!

No society that is intent on its health and survival will entertain/condone/promote the societally worthless behaviors of mentally mixed individuals who engage in the deviance of homosexuality.

Better dead than gay!

[rafterman1]

RandalDS,

Unfortunately, people don't look to history, otherwise they wouldn't act so foolish. African Americans wre first slaves and then discriminated against even after they were supposedly set free. Then you had the immigrant bigotry of the late 19th and early 20th century. Then women were second class citizens until the 20's when they got to vote. Then it became "in vogue" to hate on the blacks again. Then the Japanese internments of WWII. Then back to the "go-to" people of the haters, the black people again. Now, it's *** and, once again, the immigrants who are the boogeymen.

We look back at those times and cringe in embarrassment (well, at least most of us do). ANd you are right, 100 years from now, the treatment of *** will be an embarrassment. But some people never learn from history. It's the same prejudices all over gain, year after year, generation afte generation. Same bigotry and hatred, different group. And they never learn. And I'm sure in 40 years or so, a new group will top the despised list. It seems some people are never happy unless there is at least one group of people they can look down on.

[randalds]

A 100 years from now people will look back and wonder how we could have ever been so narrow minded as to try to stop two people in love of any gender from getting married. A ban on g*ay marriage is by definition discriminatory and should be over turned first by the California court and then by the Supreme court. Let's stop wasting time, effort and money on this issue when the eventual results are obvious to all but the most religiously bigoted.

[rafterman1]

"We discriminate between marriage and shacking; between marriage and incest; between marriage and rape; between marriag and pedophilia; between marriage and beastiallity; but we don't have a problem with these discriminations"

OK, here's the difference. Incest, rape, pedophilia and beastiality are all illegal. Being g@y is not. Preventing people from doing something that is normally legal just because you don't want them doing it is discrimination and is not OK. You are attempting to use a secondary contextual meaning of the word discrimination to cloud the issue.

But the bigots try to link being g@y with illegal criminal acts like rape and incest. It's like the arguments people have used against using the Koran to swear an oath like that one guy from Congress recently, saying that if we allow that, then why not "Mein Kampf". That somehow, Islam and the Koran are siilar to Mein Kampf when they clearly are not.

If this type of reasoning is your argument, you are on weak ground. But then again, I don't care what gay people do one way or the other. My life isn't so pathetic that I have to make myself feel better about myself by trying to deprive people of some joy - or misery depending on your view of marriage - in their lives.

[patriotic9]

Wasting time on these issues in this 21st centruy is rediculous.It's a very simple issue though.Anybody who is gay should be allowed to marry just like fellow heterosexual citizens.Those people whose religious beliefs deny gay marriage should not be force to become gay but at the same time they should impose their religious views on themsleves.TALIBANS should not be tolerated in United States whether they are MUSLIM TALIBANS,CHRISTIAN TALIBANS,JEW TALIBAN,etc.If anybody wants to impose his or her religious views on anybody else him or herself,they should impose on those HOLY,GOD LOVING,RELIGIOUS PEOPLE who SEXUALLY MOLEST and SODOMIZE young,little AMERICAN BOYS in those CHURCHES where they preach people against GAY MARRIAGE.
When OSAMA BEEN-FORGOTTEN was planning attack against USA,we were wasting our times in figuring out whether CLINTON had sexual relationship with MONICA LEWINSKY or not.When Bush lied about Iraq WMDs,we were more concerned about BRITNEY SPEARS no longer a VIRGIN.
I wonder why people in CIVILIZED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES look down on us being UNCIVILIZED,NARROW MINDED,BACKWARD COWBOYS.

[frankly6]

This country has real problems and gay marriage is not one of them. This is a devisive issue thrown out there by Republican strategists who know that a country devided is easier to control and manipulate.

While American's have been distracted by this, our country is being robbed, our children are being killed, and our freedoms eliminated.

I'm not gay. But I am secure enough in my own sexuality not to be threatend by gay marriage or anything else gay. As far as religion goes, if God doesn't like homosexuality then he should stop making homosexuals. Until then we'll just have to leave it up to him and ..... GET OVER IT!!!!!

[cathaleen]

What a waste of tax money and court time. This shouldn't be an issue.

[grumpas]

I personally think American's waste far to much of their time worrying about what someone else is doing sexually in the privacy of their own home! When there are more important things to worry about! This anti-gay nonsense was started by conservative's who don't want anyone to have freedoms! Especially, if it goes against their rigid religious teachings! They want to impose their value's upon all American's in the form of laws! They are power hungry and greedy to the point of being a real threat to freedom! Which is why they are against abortion, birth control, premartial *** and etc. When are we going to grow up as a nation and leave all the nonsense where it belongs in the church pew? I am with nvme3! The whole thing is ridiculous!

[gossimer]

Kudos to you, nvme3! :)

[wamerritt]

This isn't about the right to get married, it's about the right to be considered normal. *******uality is not normal, and should not be normalized under the label of marriage.
Unfortunately, "discrimination" brings up ideas of racial injustice, over a person's skin color, or ethnic heritage; and so is automatically thrown out. But some discrimination is right. We discriminate between marriage and shacking; between marriage and incest; between marriage and rape; between marriag and pedophilia; between marriage and beastiallity; but we don't have a problem with these discriminations. No, we should not discriminate against *******uals, but there should be no problem discriminating between marriage and the practice of ******uality.
To discriminate means to make a difference between. Well there is a difference, and it should stand.

[mrshyatt]

I say let them get married...Who are we to stop them from paying the same amount in taxes.

[luckygirl042]

I think everyone should be able to marry--why should hetros have all the misery?

[jswilliams451]

"The justices, however, invited a challenge to whether banning same-*** marriage was discrimination"

Of course a ban on same-*** marriage is discrimination.

That's a no-brainer.

Now all we have to do is decide whether discrimination against the *** is OK.

I think we've pretty much already decided that for the most part. And, at least for now, we've decided it IS ok.

Its just that some parts of the nation are resisting.

Makes for interesting reads.