SAN FRANCISCO – California may have always defined marriage to be a union between a man and a woman, but tradition and time do not make those laws constitutional, a judge ruled in overturning the state's ban on gay marriage.

Opening the way for the nation's most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled Monday that while withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians has been the status quo, it constitutes discrimination the state can no longer justify.

"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional," Kramer wrote. "Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before."

Ushering out a social norm long considered sacred won't happen right away, however. Kramer's decision is stayed automatically for 60 days to allow time for appeals, and conservative groups that oppose same-sex marriages promised a vigorous fight to uphold California's one woman-one man marriage laws.

"For a single judge to rule there is no conceivable purpose for preserving marriage as one man and one woman is mind-boggling," said Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver, whose group represents the Campaign for California Families, one of two organizations that joined the state's attorney general's office in defending California's existing laws.

"This decision will be gasoline on the fire of the pro-marriage movement in California as well as the rest of the country," Staver said.

Supporters of same-sex marriage said they are prepared for a lengthy appeal process, but described Kramer's ruling as an unqualified victory. They compared it to the 1948 state Supreme Court decision that made California the first state to legalize interracial marriage.

"Today's ruling is an important step toward a more fair and just California that rejects discrimination and affirms family values for all California families," San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said.

Kramer's decision came in a pair of lawsuits seeking to overturn California's statutory ban on gay marriage. They were brought by the city of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couples last March, after the California Supreme Court halted the four-week marriage spree Mayor Gavin Newsom initiated when he directed city officials to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians in defiance of state law.

Jeanne Rizzo, 58, and Pali Cooper, 49, one of the first couples to be denied the chance to marry after the Supreme Court ruling last year, said they were "basking" in Monday's decision.

"We know we have many steps ahead of us, but we have the opportunity to go from here standing in dignity not defense. ... It is always better to do that," Rizzo said.

"The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts – separate but equal," the judge wrote.

Two groups opposed to gay marriage rights, The Campaign for California Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, argued that the state has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation.

Kramer disagreed.

"One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married," he wrote. "Thus, no legitimate state interest to justify the preclusion of same-sex marriage can be found."

Kramer struck down not only the state's one man-one woman marriage law but also a 2000 voter initiative that prevented California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Both laws violate the civil rights of gays and lesbians because they "implicate the basic human right to marry a person of one's choice," he wrote.

Gay marriage opponents were particularly upset by Kramer's decision to nullify Proposition 22, the ballot measure that was approved by 61 percent of voters. The measure declared that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

"The practical effect is the disregard of close to two-thirds of the people of California who used the initiative process to ensure that marriage would remain between one man and one woman," said Robert Tyler, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Monday's ruling is the latest development in a national debate on the legality and morality of same-sex marriage that has been raging since 2003, when the highest court in Massachusetts decided that denying gay couples the right to wed was unconstitutional in that state.

Kramer is the fourth trial court judge since August to decide that the right to marry and its attendant benefits must be extended to same-sex couples. Just as many judges have gone the other way recently, however, refusing to accept the argument that keeping gays and lesbians from marrying violates their civil rights. All the cases are on appeal.

Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murietta, predicted the judge's ruling would spur efforts to amend the state Constitution to ban gay nuptials, as was done in 13 other states last year. Haynes has introduced a bill to place such a constitutional amendment on the November ballot, but if the Democrat-controlled Legislature defeats it, he said gay marriage opponents would accomplish the task themselves by petition.

"This ruling demonstrates absolutely what we have to do, which is to amend the Constitution so that we can take the question out of the hands of any judge anywhere at any time," he said.

The case is Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding, No. 4365, Marriage Cases.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 at 3:10 PM. Want to discuss? Leave a comment below.