After a judge declined to put an immediate end to same-sex marriages in San Francisco, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered California's attorney general to "take immediate steps" to get a court ruling to make the city stop.
Schwarzenegger's directive to Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Friday was prompted in part by the judge's decision not to impose a temporary restraining order that would have halted San Francisco's weeklong parade of 3,175 same-sex weddings, said Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger's communications director.
"Our civilized society and legal system is based upon a respect for and adherence to the rule of law," Schwarzenegger wrote in a letter to Lockyer. "The City and County of San Francisco's unfortunate choice to disregard state law and grant marriage certificates to gay couples directly undermines this fundamental guarantee."
The Republican governor "feels that we've come to a point where we're starting down a dangerous path and it leads to anarchy at some point," Stutzman said. "It's time for this to end."
Lockyer, an elected Democrat who is a potential candidate in the 2006 governor's race, has said he plans to vigorously defend state laws barring gay marriage.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom last week decided to grant same-sex couples marriage licenses, making the city the first in the US to sanction marriage of gay and lesbian couples. Only the State of Vermont sanctions civil unions between same-sex couples, while Massachusetts, after a state high court ruled that banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, is set to become the first state to approve same-sex marriage later this year.
Conservatives have filed law-suits in a bid to stop the same-sex wedding spree in San Francisco, but on Friday, Judge Ronald Evans Quidachay denied the Campaign for California Families' request for a temporary restraining order, saying conservative groups failed to prove same-sex weddings would cause irreparable harm.
In a separate case, another judge declined to order an immediate stop to the marriages on Tuesday.
The conservative group argued that the weddings harmed all the Californians who voted in 2000 for Proposition 22, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
The judge suggested that the rights of the gay and lesbian couples appeared to be more substantial.
"If the court has to weigh rights here, on the one hand you are talking about voting rights, and on the other you are talking about equal rights," Quidachay said.
Quidachay consolidated the Campaign for California Families' lawsuit against the city with one filed by another conservative group, and told lawyers for both sides to work out between themselves when the next hearing would be held.
Mathew Staver, a lawyer repre-senting the Campaign for California Families, said he believes the court ultimately will find that Newsom acted illegally when he began allowing gay marriages last week.
"He can't decide to grant same-sex marriage licenses any more than he can declare war against a foreign country," Staver said.
Newsom remained defiant before the ruling, officiating at the wedding of one of California's most prominent lesbian politicians inside his offices at City Hall.
A crowd of politicians and lawyers celebrated that wedding as other gays and lesbians prepared to join the more than 3,000 same-sex couples allowed to marry so far.
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