After sanctioning more than 2,800 gay marriages in the past week, the City of San Francisco sued the state of California, challenging its ban on same-sex marriages on constitutional grounds.
Two judges already are considering challenges from conservative groups seeking to halt the marriage spree that began last Thursday. The city's lawsuit, filed late Thursday afternoon, asks that those cases be consolidated into one.
"The city and county of San Francisco is going on the offensive today to protect the mayor's action" allowing gay marriage, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said.
PHOTO: AFP
Mayor Gavin Newsom said he doesn't regret giving out marriage licenses before the city filed a legal challenge to the state's marriage laws, but added that he's glad the question is now in the courts.
"I think what we have done is affirm marriage here in San Francisco," Newsom said. "We affirmed it because we are celebrating people coming together in their unions. I feel affirmed as a married man by what's happened here in San Francisco."
A lawyer for a group trying to halt the gay marriages described the city's move as a delaying tactic.
"This is as much a maneuver to keep this in court and keep the issue alive as it is anything else," said Benjamin Bull, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said San Francisco's same-sex marriage licenses "fail to meet legal standards."
"The attorney general has assured me that he will vigorously defend the constitutionality of the law" barring gay marriage, Schwarzenegger said.
The city is asking Superior Court Judge James Warren to declare unconstitutional three sections of the California Family Code that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
City officials want the judge to determine if barring same-sex couples from marrying violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the state constitution.
On Tuesday, Warren gave the city the choice of ending the same-sex wedding march or returning to court in late March to show why the process has not been halted. The city said it would continue issuing such licenses until forced to stop. Judge Ronald Quidachay is considering a lawsuit filed by another conservative group, the Campaign for California Families. He said Tuesday he was not ready to rule and rescheduled for yesterday.
Like the city, conservatives want the two cases consolidated into one, but they want Quidachay to hear it instead of Warren.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS