California Supremes Stop San Francisco’s ‘Marriage’ Rebellion 3/12/2004
By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel
Finally, law and order have returned to the Golden State to stop the phony marriage nonsense beside the Golden Gate.
Yesterday, the California Supreme Court saw that the city where everyone leaves their heart was quite short on brain. The court issued a unanimous (7-0) order to end the issuance of same-sex “marriage” licenses by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and other city officials for the time being. The court order requires the city of San Francisco to respond to the court’s ruling on or before March 18 and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which successfully obtained the order on behalf of three San Francisco taxpayers, has until March 25 to respond.
The court’s order is not a ruling on the merits of the case. It did not decide whether preserving marriage to a man and a woman violates the California Constitution, as San Francisco officials contend. The court did address the “law and order” issue that the court below failed to address. A lower court judge failed to stop the issuance of the licenses finding that “there was no irreparable harm” in doing so.
San Francisco officials at the instigation of Newsom created a same-sex “marriage license,” for which they get $82 “nonrefundable” dollars times 3,500 applicants, with a disclaimer admitting “it may not be legal outside of San Francisco.” The license isn’t legal anywhere because only the state has authority over the subject matter of marriage. The people of California enacted “Prop. 22” in 2000, by a 61.4 percent margin, to limit marriage to a man and a woman.
The California Penal Code imposes a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year for an official convicted of willfully and knowingly solemnizing an illegal marriage. A conspiracy to violate the law is punishable as a felony. The California Department of Health issued a statement soon after the licenses in San Francisco were first issued, saying it would not record the licenses. A wise decision considering it is also a crime to do so.
Any attempt to enforce the invalid licenses in another state under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution should fail because with no record of a marriage in California, there is no record to be recognized anywhere else.