California Supreme Court says yes to same-sex marriage

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.

The court's 4-3 ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to block same-sex marriage, while the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

Under court rules, Thursday's decision does not take effect for 30 days, lawyers said, and opponents of gay marriage said they would ask the court to stay its judgment pending the expected vote by the public in November.

"It benefits no one to redefine marriage for three to four months," said attorney Andrew Pugno of ProtectMarriage.com, who said he would seek a stay while pursuing an initiative to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

The court found marriage to be a "fundamental constitutional right," and that to deny that right to same-sex couples would require a compelling government interest. The Republican-dominated court said the state had failed to show such an interest.

"In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the majority in a 121-page opinion.

The long-awaited court decision stemmed from San Francisco's highly publicized same-sex weddings, which in 2004 helped spur a conservative backlash in a presidential election year and a national dialogue over gay rights.

Several states have since passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.

The ruling affects more than 100,000 same-sex couples in the state, about a quarter of whom have children, according to U.S. census figures. It came after courts in New York, Washington and New Jersey refused to extend marriage rights to gay couples. Before Thursday, only Massachusetts' top court had ruled in favor of permitting gays to wed.

Unlike in Massachusetts, nothing prevents out-of-state same-sex couples from coming to California to get married.

"The invitation is going to be a kind of come one, come all, and that's going to produce a large number of gay marriages," said Douglas Kmiec, law professor at Pepperdine University. "They will then return to their home communities and will insist the states recognize their marriages as valid."

The ultimate reach of the ruling could be limited, however, since most states do not recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. Nor does the federal government.

The California ruling is considered monumental by virtue of the state's size — 38 million out of a U.S. population of 302 million — and its historic role in the vanguard of the many social and cultural changes that have swept the country since World War II.

In San Francisco, the reaction was jubilant. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, pumping his fist in the air, told a roaring crowd at City Hall: "It's about human dignity. It's about human rights. It's about time in California. As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It's inevitable."

Schwarzenegger, despite his vetoes of legislation to authorize same-sex marriage, said he would abide by the court's ruling.

"I respect the court's decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling," he said. "Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling."

But in November, voters could be asked to render their opinion on an amendment that would again attempt to ban same-sex marriage.

A coalition of religious and conservative activists has submitted 1.1 million signatures to qualify the amendment, which would say that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council, said the group was "not surprised by the ruling, though extremely disappointed."

He said the group expects "that with the November ballot, we will have the opportunity for the people of California to once again define marriage as only between a man and a woman and this time place it into California's constitution, which would strengthen it and keep it out of the hands of the courts."

After San Francisco decided to allow same-sex marriages in 2004, which set off a month of jubilant same-sex weddings in the city, the California Supreme Court intervened and ordered the city to stop issuing licenses to gay couples. The court later invalidated the documents and declined to address the constitutionality of a state ban on same-sex marriage until lower courts acted first.

Gay-rights lawyers won an early victory in the dispute when a San Francisco trial judge decided in 2005 that gays should be permitted to wed. An appeals court later overturned that decision on a 2-1 vote, ruling that only the Legislature or the voters could change California's traditional definition of marriage.

In 2000, 61 percent of California voters approved Proposition 22, which said that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."

Since the ballot measure, California has passed one of the strongest domestic-partnership laws in the country, giving registered same-sex couples most of the rights of married people.

But citing a 1948 California Supreme Court decision that overturned a ban on interracial marriages, the justices struck down the state's 1977 one-man, one-woman marriage law, as well as the similar, voter-approved law that passed in 2000.

The chief justice was joined by Justices Joyce Kennard and Kathryn Werdegar, all three of whom were appointed by Republican governors, and Justice Carlos Moreno, the only member of the court appointed by a Democrat.

In a dissent, Justice Marvin Baxter agreed with many arguments of the majority but said that the court overstepped its authority and that changes to marriage laws should be decided by the voters. Justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan also dissented.

California's secretary of state is expected to rule by the end of June whether the sponsors gathered enough signatures to put the gay-marriage amendment on the ballot.

Thursday's ruling could alter the dynamics of the presidential race and state and congressional contests in California and beyond by causing a backlash among conservatives and drawing them to the polls in larger numbers.

A spokesman for Republican John McCain, who opposes gay marriage, said the Arizona senator "doesn't believe judges should be making these decisions." The campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton said they believe the issue of marriage should be left to the states.

Material from the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Associated Press and The Sacramento Bee is included in this report.