Anti-gay groups get into Calif. marriage suit

1. Anti-gay groups get into Calif. marriage suit

by Ann Rostow
PlanetOut Network
Posted October 18, 2004

On Friday, Judge Richard Kramer of the California Superior Court
in San Francisco agreed to let two conservative groups revive
their lawsuit against San Francisco, effectively allowing the
organizations to keep making the case that same-sex couples
should not be allowed to wed.

Earlier this year, the Campaign for California Families and the
Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund sued the city, asking the
court to make San Francisco stop issuing marriage licenses to
gay couples, and also seeking to have those marriages
invalidated. Their lawsuit was suspended while these exact
issues proceeded directly to the state Supreme Court on another
track, at the behest of Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Indeed,
the justices then ordered San Francisco to cease and desist, and
declared some 4,000 marriages invalid.

But the high court deliberately declined to rule on the
underlying question of whether California's marriage laws were
constitutional. As such, advocates fighting for marriage, led by
Lambda Legal, filed a freedom-to-marry suit in San Francisco
against the state. A similar suit was filed in Los Angeles, and
subsequently another marriage suit was filed in San Francisco.
This summer, all the marriage litigation was brought under the
jurisdiction of Judge Kramer, who has coordinated the cases in
his courtroom, while keeping them all technically separate.

Included in Kramer's coordinated caseload was the dormant suit
by the right-wing groups. Lambda and others believe this lawsuit
should be moot, given that San Francisco has long since stopped
marrying gay couples and given that the high court has already
annulled the previous marriages. But the conservative plaintiffs
have insisted that their suit should be taken down from the
shelf and dusted off, based on an unresolved issue of whether
same-sex marriage is constitutional.

Now, Judge Kramer has agreed to let the anti-marriage group make
their case, at least in writing. According to Jon Davidson of
Lambda's West Coast office, the conservative plaintiffs will
present their brief on Nov. 4, but it's not clear what other
steps they will be allowed to take to pursue their interests.
Possibly none.

Significantly, the Campaign for California Families and the Prop
22 defense group are not directly involved in the main
litigation: Lambda's case against California on behalf of 12
same-sex couples. Earlier this month, Attorney General Lockyer
filed his written brief in defense of the state's position in
that case, stating that marriage has traditionally been a
heterosexual institution, and that any new definition should
come from the Legislature rather than the courts.

Lockyer, a friend of the LGBT community, expressly rejected the
line of defense that denigrated gay and lesbian families,
leading the right-wing groups to suggest that the attorney
general was not capable of fully defending the anti-gay
position. Now that their case is alive again, the conservatives
have the chance to tell Judge Kramer that gay marriage has
harmed Scandinavian society, and that gay families harm
children, along with other theories of this nature.

Judge Kramer has scheduled a meeting with all the participants
in the coordinated cases for Oct. 26.

©1995-2004 GAY.COM INTERACTIVE SERVICES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.