LOS ANGELES, June 30: Opponents of gay marriage filed a long-shot petition with the US Supreme Court asking the justices to immediately halt same-sex weddings taking place in California since Friday, when an appeals court lifted a 5-year-old ban on gay matrimony.
Marriage ceremonies of gay and lesbian couples went ahead after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco removed its stay of a trial judge’s order declaring the gay marriage ban, known as Proposition 8, unconstitutional.
The stay had been in force while the decision striking down Prop 8, a state constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2008, was appealed to the Supreme Court. Political supporters of the measure were left to appeal the case because state elected officials declined to defend it.
But the justices on Wednesday ruled Prop 8 proponents lacked legal standing to defend the ban, a decision that left the trial judge’s ruling intact and paved the way for gay marriage in the state to resume.
The Supreme Court had said its ruling would not go into effect for at least 25 days, the amount of time normally given the losing party, in this case, Prop 8 backers, to seek a rehearing of the matter.
But California Attorney General Kamala Harris publicly urged the appeals court to lift its stay sooner than that, and on Friday the 9th Circuit did so in a surprise move that prompted a flurry of hastily arranged same-sex weddings up and down the state.
Harris herself officiated the very first one, a ceremony in which one of the two couples named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Prop 8, Kristin Perry and her fiancDee, Sandy Stier, exchanged vows on a balcony overlooking the grand staircase at San Francisco City Hall.
Dozens more couples lined up yesterday at City Hall as officials kept the doors open to accommodate gay and lesbian couples eager to tie the knot.
The scene was upbeat but subdued, with many couples casually dressed as they waited to obtain marriage licenses. The calm was punctuated about every 15 minutes by loud clapping when a wedding ended, as family and friends of a newly wedded couple joined in applause with marriage license applicants.
City Administrator Naomi Kelly said at least one couple came from as far away as Texas.
One pair of San Francisco newlyweds, Ken and David Miller, who have been together for 24 years, said they decided to seize the moment yesterday out of concern that the window for same-sex nuptials could somehow close again.
“We knew how the courts can play games and pull the plug,” said Ken Miller, 60. “But the courts are closed over the weekend and the city was open, so we thought we should do it.”
In their application asking the Supreme Court to overrule the 9th Circuit and reinstate the gay marriage ban, opponents argued the appeals court had jumped the gun in lifting its stay.
The Arizona-based group Alliance Defending Freedom argued that the 9th Circuit lacked authority to act when it did, and that it violated the terms of its own stay requiring the ruling remain in place “until final disposition by the Supreme Court.”
‘WEAK ARGUMENT’
But the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which sponsored the federal court challenge to Prop 8, issued a statement insisting the 9th Circuit acted under its own “broad discretion” to issue its stay in the first place.
“Now that the Supreme Court has decided that the injunction against Proposition 8 must stand, it was entirely appropriate for the 9th circuit to dissolve its stay of that injunction,” the alliance said in a statement.
(AGENCIES)
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