MIB:
Radio talk show host and openly gay man Al Rantel: \"Newsome should be arrested. Absolutely. We cannot have public officials elected to enforce the law turn around and break them....he is making a show of this.\"

I think it hurts our cause to take on the attributes of the heterosexual marriage when in this age of extraordinary progess for gays we have a chance to define who we want to be. By persuing \"marriage\" we become more like \"them\" and less like the unique society that we are--a society that has the opportunity to define it's codes of practices (number of partners, type of relationships, abilities to change and define itself)--why do we need marriage?

I repeat, legal rights are seperate and can be defended without the mantel of marriage.

Jim Allen:
Ah, MIB, totally missing the point as usual. This is California, not Chicago, Montana or Iowa. We do what we want out here. The rest of y'all just follow. Quit clutching your pearls about the rule of law or what's the standard under some tedious law elsewhere. We don't care out here for the most part. Newsome has done this to get Prop. 22 in to the higher courts, where it'll be smacked down. Brilliant move on his part.

Jim Allen:
Ah, MIB, totally missing the point as usual. This is California, not Chicago, Montana or Iowa. We do what we want out here. The rest of y'all just follow. Quit clutching your pearls about the rule of law or what's the standard under some tedious law elsewhere. We don't care out here for the most part. Newsome has done this to get Prop. 22 in to the higher courts, where it'll be smacked down. Brilliant move on his part.

Ah, I see. So if you're conservative, a Christian--basically anyone with whom JimAllen disagrees, like Roy Moore of Alabama--then such actions are illegal, a defiance of the law, and just plain wrong. But if you're in San Francisco and doing something with which JimAllen agrees, then it's acceptable.

Hypocrisy, thy name is JimAllen.

Like the naturalized citizens who are expected to know more about America than those of us born here, gay couples are being held to a standard the denizens of Vegas chapels and divorce courts have never had to meet: to justify the simple human urge, so taken for granted by the rest of us, to fully and legally come together. Just as it's common to see an immigrant take the oath and then kiss the ground, the result of all this enforced soul-searching may well be a fervor that will honor an embattled institution. Gay people are being asked to form a more perfect union. In the process, perhaps they can teach us something that we casual citizens and spouses badly need to learn.

Hypocrisy, thy name is JimAllen

A judge said San Francisco appears to be violating the law by issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, but he declined Tuesday to order an immediate halt to the weddings. A conservative group had asked Judge James Warren to immediately stop the weddings and void the 2,464 same-sex marriages performed in the city since Thursday. Instead, Warren issued a nonbinding order urging the city to halt the weddings, and told city lawyers to return March 29 to explain their legal position.

\"We are extremely happy and gratified that a stay was not issued,\" City Attorney Dennis Herrerra said. Mayor Gavin Newsom said through a spokeswoman that the city would keep performing the marriages despite the judge's urging. \"We will continue to issue marriage licenses until the court rules we can no longer do so,\" spokeswoman Darlene Chiu said

Denver Fan
Current CNN.com poll
What is the bigger threat to the institution of Marriage?
Same-sex marriage- 31%
Divorce- 69%
Cast your vote everybody!!!!!!!! wink

Jim Allen:
Whether the Angels are going to be OK at the shortstop position in the upcoming season is far more important to me.

JASooner:

As for the supposed hypocrisy between Judge Roy Moore and Mayor Newsom: There is an important difference in that Moore was specifically ordered by a higher official to remove the 10C shrine. OTOH, the religious right have tried to get a similar order to cease & desist from two courts, but have so far not been succesful. Only if and when Newsom gets such an order, and defies it, will this case legally parallel the Moore case.

Moore got in trouble because he defied \"settled law.\" He knew when he placed the monument in my home state's Judicial Building that doing so was contrary to well-established law regarding the display of religious symbols in public buildings. In doing so, he treated the public space as his own private pulpit and violated his oath of office.

Public officials such as Newsom and Moore do not have the LEGAL DISCRETION to act as they have done in their respective cases. Moore ultimately was thrown out of office after he defied the Federal court's order, but he was only cited for contempt of court after he had already persistently violated his oath of office as a public official. And he was roundly condemned across this state and across the country for his actions long before the contempt order was issued by Judge Thompson. Again, if public officials have the privilege of being able to disregard the CLEAR mandates of the law in executing the law, then there is no law at all, just arbitrariness.

Civil disobedience relies upon private citizens forcing public officials to enforce unfair or immoral laws, even when the officials in good conscience would prefer not to do so. By doing this, it points out the immorality or unfairness of the laws in question.

The proper way for Newsom and others to have made a symbolic showing on this issue while conforming to the law would have been for thousands of gay/lesbian applicants to have appeared day after day at his office seeking marriage licenses, and for him to have publicly and reluctantly denied their individual requests. This would have three immediate results. First, enormous public relations boost for the movement in question. Second, would have created grounds for suit in state courts under the state constitution's equal protection clause, which is the proper forum for deciding if the statute in question is unconstitutional. Third, it would create an enormous disruption of other governmental business, thereby making the protest have a practical impact.

MIB:
Roy Moore defied the law, ignoring the prohibition of putting such a monument in a public building. He went ahead and did it anyway. Newsom ignored the law that marriage is only between a man and a woman. He defied the law and went ahead and did it anyway. He did not need a judge reminding him of this for him to be labeled a lawbreaker.

Frank said San Francisco's decision to promote civil disobedience and allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain marriage licenses promotes the notion that unpopular laws can be broken or ignored.

\"We have something real to defend here,\" Frank said of the (Massachusetts Supreme Cout) decision and efforts to stop the federal constitutional amendment. \"When you're in a real struggle, San Francisco making a symbolic point becomes a diversion.\"

And no question became so clear, so obvious, as the one being asked by same-sex-marriage advocates around the world: What, really, is so wrong about this? What is the horrible threat about two adults who love each other so intensely, so purely, that they're willing to commit to a lifetime of being together and sleeping together and arguing over who controls the remote? And what government body dares to claim a right to legislate against it?

It is a question no group, no homophobic senator, no piece of antigay legislation, no BushCo stump speech, no Bible-humping pastor has been able to answer with any clarity or conviction.

They can only mumble about immorality and quote some vague Scripture about sodomy that makes them all tingly, as wary biblical scholars all over the world roll their eyes and point to a thousand proofs that demonstrate, over and over again, how the Bible is basically a reinterpreted regurgitated piece of classic patriarchal misogynistic mythmaking that says exactly what the church rewrote it to say.

But I might have part of an answer. From what I can glean from some of my hate mail and the general conservative outcry, here is what the homophobes fear about same-sex marriage: bestiality.

That is, they are utterly terrified that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope of permissive debauchery that will lead to the utter breakdown of social rules and sexual mores, to people being allowed to marry their dogs, or their own dead grandmothers, or chairs, or three hairy men from Miami Beach.

In short, to the neocon Right, a nation that allows gays to marry is a nation with no boundaries and no condoms and where all sorts of illicit disgusting behaviors will soon be legal and be forced upon them, a horrific tribal wasteland full of leeches and flying bugs and scary sex acts they only read about in chat rooms and their beloved \"Left Behind\" series of cute apocalypse-porn books.

You know, just like how giving blacks the right to own their own land meant we had to give the same rights to house plants and power tools, or how granting women the right to vote meant it was a slippery slope until we gave suffrage to feral cats and sea slugs and rusty hubcaps.

But S.F. has taken the lead, has sounded the battle cry, has defined itself anew. And for that, more than any other of its wonders, I am incredibly proud that I live in San Francisco, the best city in the whole goddamn world -- gay, straight or anywhere in between.

So the only legitimate argument against gay marriage is that it might lead to the condoning of polygamy, but in order for that to be an argument, you have to first prove why polygamy is, in fact, bad for society. Didn't seem to bother those in the Bible. And once you've proven polygamy is bad for society, unless you can find some reason it is like gay marriage in that respect, you still don't have an argument against gay marriage.

Joe in Philly:
And Roy Moore DID? He was a f**king judge himself! He, more than anyone else, should have known that he was breaking the law.

You can say it until you're blue in the face, but until Newsom has been ordered to stop and exhausted EVERY appeal, the situations are NOT the same.

MIB:
And of course the cases are the same. Only hypocrites would claim otherwise.

MIB:
And of course the cases are the same. Only hypocrites would claim otherwise.

He did not need a judge reminding him of this for him to be labeled a lawbreaker

Californians approved Proposition 209 a year ago, voting to ban the use of race or gender in state hiring, contracting or school admissions. Both sides of the debate are now saying the issue is headed back to court, and leaders are among those choosing sides.

Gov. Pete Wilson, Proposition 209's chief proponent, says he will sue California communities that do not abide by it. But San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown says he plans to keep affirmative action in his city. \"There will be no change in the program in San Francisco,\" he said.

Not if he can help it, says Glynn Custred, co-author of Proposition 209. \"Willie Brown, like Richard Nixon, thinks he's above the law. Willie Brown, like his soul mate George Wallace, is going to stand in the way of civil rights, and we are going to bring every legal measure we can against the Willie Browns,\" he said.

A county clerk in New Mexico says it has nothing to do with \"politics or morals.\"

Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap says the county plans to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

She made the decision after asking for an opinion from the county attorney, who said New Mexico law isn't clear on the issue. He also says refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples could open the county to legal action.

State law defines marriage as a civil contract between contracting parties. It doesn't mention gender.

San Francisco courts will resume wrestling with the question of same-sex marriages today, a day after the city filed a lawsuit against the state, challenging laws that bar gay unions on the grounds that they violate language in the California Constitution that forbids discrimination.

Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered his staff last week to remove references to \"bride\" and \"groom\" from marriage licenses and to begin performing same-sex ceremonies, arguing that to do otherwise would violate the Constitution's equal protection clause.

In filing Thursday's lawsuit, city officials hope to focus the legal dispute on the constitutional issue of discrimination. Today, two judges are scheduled to consider lawsuits from two groups seeking to halt the marriages. The city is expected to ask this morning to have those cases consolidated into one, to be heard by Superior Court Judge James L. Warren.

If the cases are not brought together before Warren, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ronald Evan Quidachay will be faced with the question at a 2 p.m. hearing on whether to issue an immediate order to stop the city from issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

Opponents of the city's decision to issue marriage licenses to gay couples have tried to limit the case to a narrower issue: whether a mayor has the right to break state law. \"It goes to the heart of the question: Do we or do we not have the right to do this?\" Newsom said at a news conference. \"It will force the debate and discussion. It was a good move.\"

Asked why the city hadn't pursued a lawsuit against the state to clarify the legal question before issuing the licenses, Newsom was frank: \"We put a human face and a real story behind the theory of discrimination,\" he said.

The legal filing instantly upped the ante in the city's high-profile act of civil disobedience, requiring California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer to take a stand. Although Newsom's staff said Lockyer had been advised in advance of the city's plan to begin marrying gays and lesbians, the state's top law enforcement officer had remained silent on the issue, saying he had not been asked to weigh in.

On Thursday he issued a statement saying that he did \"not personally support policies that give lesser legal rights and responsibilities to committed same-sex couples than those provided to heterosexual couples.\" \"But the people of California have spoken,\" Lockyer said. \"State law prohibits the recognition of same-sex marriages. It is the duty of my office to defend that law against this challenge … and allow the courts to determine whether the city has acted illegally.\"

The state Family Code defines marriage as between \"a man and a woman.\" Furthermore, four years ago voters approved Proposition 22, a ballot measure that amended the Family Code to state that no same-sex marriages granted out of state would be honored in California and that only marriages \"between a man and a woman\" were valid.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reiterated his objection to same-sex marriages and promised that Lockyer would defend state law. \"The people of California spoke on the issue of same-sex marriage when Prop. 22 was overwhelmingly passed in 2000,\" the governor said in a statement.

Officials in the state Department of Health Services have said they would not accept the altered marriage license forms, but San Francisco officials said it remained unclear whether that would have a bearing on the forms' validity.

Representatives of the Campaign for California Families are scheduled to appear before Quidachay this afternoon to seek an immediate halt to the marriages. The Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, represented by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, appeared Tuesday before Warren with a similar request, which was denied.

The group and the city were ordered back to court March 29 to argue the merits of the case, giving San Francisco a free hand to continue with the marriages. Already, nearly 3,000 couples have wed in the city. University of Santa Clara law professor Gerald Uelmen, an expert on the California Constitution, said the lawsuit would help the city in its effort to have a court rule on the equal protection issue.

\"It gets them closer,\" he said. \"Now the issue of the underlying constitutionality of the state law is directly presented. It certainly puts them in a better posture than defending a claim that they have impinged on state authority.\"

jqueer:
I'm too damn lazy to go back through all the posts and do the research, but if you're one of the people who have called for the impeachment and/or arrest of Mayor Newsom on the notion that his action is the same as what got former Justice Moore removed from the bench, then you are equating two entirely different things. If you're merely saying that like Moore, Newsom is taking the wrong path to social change, then you have an opinion I disagree with, but respect, unlike that bastion of conservatism, Barney Frank, who actually agrees with you.

Joe in Philly:
The cases are NOT the same. Only a stuck-up, self-righteous, condescending right-wing nut would claim otherwise. I wouldn't expect one to admit this because they all know how perfect they are, and how the rest of us poor pathetic slobs are unworthy to breathe the same air.

Jim Allen:
And what are you referring to? Prop. 22 or the State Constitution? As Newsom--ha! I typed that pesky \"e\" again--has stated, he was sworn to uphold the State Constitution and that is the basis of his action, that the State Constitution takes priority over a particular law.

A mayor, like a governor, is an elected executive official. As such, it is his constitutional duty to uphold and execute the law. He is not given the right to defy the law. Even if he disagrees with the law, he is legally obliged to follow it. Period.

If Newsom doesn't like it, he should resign his position and then choose to fight it. An executive cannot sue his legislature to disobey a law.

CPT_Doom
Yes, I am using hyperbole here, but clearly MIB, even you must admit there is a time when anyone, elected official or not, should not follow a law that is clearly unConstitutional. Again, there is a distinction here between Moore and Newsom, although you refuse to acknowledge it. Newsom has clearly stated he is doing his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution of the State of California - and that means disregarding a law that clearly violates the Constitution.