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Return to CCF in the News index page Conservatives to appeal Calif. gay marriage ruling
John Jessup, Christian Broadcasting Network
March 15, 2005
WASHINGTON - Gay rights activists and supporters of traditional marriage are gearing up for what could be a lengthy legal battle over same-sex marriage in California.
Conservatives plan to appeal a state judge's ruling that California cannot ban gay marriage.
Celebrations over the court's ruling went on through the night in San Francisco's gay Castro district, but legal analysts agree the celebration will not last long.
Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer's ruling that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional takes California's marriage battle to the next stage.
Opponents have already mapped out what is next, vowing to appeal, and banding conservative groups and religious leaders together to lobby state lawmakers on two bills that would make same-sex marriage illegal. One would let Californians vote on a state constitutional amendment on the issue in November.
Gay marriage opponent Randy Thomasson remarked, "This outrageous ruling will inspire average people to rise up and fight to protect marriage as it naturally is, for a man and a woman, a husband and a wife."
The judge's decision came in a lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco and more than a dozen same-sex couples over a state Supreme Court ruling that voided 4,000 marriage licenses after last year's spate of homosexual marriage ceremonies.
But that ruling did not address the constitutionality of the state's gay marriage ban, enacted by the legislature in 1977 and backed by 61 percent of California voters in a statewide ballot measure in 2000.
Judge Kramer said that law violates civil rights, by "arbitrarily denying marriage to same-sex couples" and thus violating the state's equal protection clause.
Gay rights activist Kate Kendall said, "This ruling communicates that lesbian and gay citizens in California are full individuals entitled to the full dignity of the law for their relationships of their lives and their families."
But conservative groups, planning an appeal, say the ruling amounts to judicial tyranny and flies smack in the face of the will of the people.
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