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| Cynthia Wides, right, and Elizabeth Carey file for a marriage certificate at City Hall in San Francisco, Saturday, June 29, 2013. Dozens of gay couples have lined up outside City Hall in San Francisco as clerks have resumed issuing same-sex marriage licenses one day after a federal appeals court cleared the way for the state of California to immediately lift a 4-year freeze. |
SAN FRANCISCO
(AP) -- Less than 24 hours after California started issuing marriage
licenses to same sex couples, lawyers for the sponsors of the state's
gay marriage ban filed an emergency motion Saturday asking the U.S.
Supreme Court to stop the weddings being performed in San Francisco.
Attorneys
with the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom claim in the petition
that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acted prematurely and
unfairly on Friday when it allowed gay marriage to resume by lifting a
hold that had been placed on same sex unions.
"The
Ninth Circuit's June 28, 2013 Order purporting to dissolve the
stay...is the latest in a long line of judicial irregularities that have
unfairly thwarted Petitioners' defense of California's marriage
amendment," the paperwork states. "Failing to correct the appellate
court's actions threatens to undermine the public's confidence in its
legal system."
The motion was filed as dozens
of couples in jeans, shorts, white dresses and the occasional military
uniform filled San Francisco City Hall on Saturday to obtain marriage
licenses. On Friday, 81 same sex couples received marriage licenses.
Although
a few clerk's offices around the state stayed open late on Friday, San
Francisco, which is holding its annual gay pride celebration this
weekend, was the only jurisdiction to hold weekend hours so that same
sex couples could take advantage of their newly restored right, Clerk
Karen Hong said.
A sign posted on the door of
the office where a long line of couples waited to fill out applications
listed the price for a license, a ceremony or both above the words
"Equality(equals)Priceless."
"We really wanted
to make this happen," Hong said, adding that her whole staff and a
group of volunteers came into work without having to be asked. "It's
spontaneous, which is great in its own way."
The
timing couldn't have been better for California National Guard Capt.
Michael Potoczniak, 38, and his partner of 10 years, Todd Saunders, 47,
of El Cerrito.
Potoczniak, who joined the
Guard after the military's ban on openly gay service was repealed almost
two years ago, was scheduled to fly out Sunday night for a month of
basic training in Texas.
"I woke up this
morning, shook him awake and said, `Let's go,'" said Potoczniak, who
chose to get married in his Army uniform. "It's something that people
need to see because everyone is so used to uniforms at military
weddings."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on
Wednesday that Proposition 8's backers lacked standing to defend the
2008 law because California's governor and attorney general have
declined to defend the ban.
Then on Friday,
the 9th Circuit appeared to have removed the last obstacle to making
same sex matrimony legal again in California when it removed its hold on
a lower court's 2010 order directing state officials to stop enforcing
the ban.
Within hours, same sex couples were
seeking marriage licenses. The two couples who sued to overturn
Proposition 8 were wed in San Francisco and Los Angeles Friday.
Alliance
Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Austin Nimocks said on Saturday that
the Supreme Court's consideration of the case isn't done because his
clients still have 22 days to ask the justices to reconsider the 5-4
decision announced Wednesday.
Under Supreme
Court rules, the losing side in a legal dispute has 25 days to request a
rehearing. While such requests are almost never granted, the high
court said that it wouldn't finalize its judgment in the case at least
until after that waiting period elapsed.
The
San Francisco-based appeals court had said when it imposed the stay that
it would remain in place until the Supreme Court issued its final
disposition, according to Nimocks.
"Everyone
on all sides of the marriage debate should agree that the legal process
must be followed," he said. "On Friday, the 9th Circuit acted contrary
to its own order without explanation."
Many
legal experts who had anticipated such a last-ditch effort by gay
marriage opponents said it was unlikely to succeed because the 9th
Circuit has independent authority over its own orders - in this case,
its 2010 stay.
While the ban's backers can
still ask the Supreme Court for a rehearing, the 25-day waiting period
is not binding on lower federal courts, Vikram Amar, a constitutional
law professor with the University of California, Davis law school, said.
"As
a matter of practice, most lower federal courts wait to act," Amar
said. "But there is nothing that limits them from acting sooner. It was
within the 9th Circuit's power to do what it did."
Also
waiting to wed Saturday were Scott Kehoe, 34, and his fiance, Aurelien
Bricker, 24. After finding out on Facebook that the city was issuing
same sex marriage licenses Friday, the San Francisco couple rushed out
to Tiffany's to buy wedding rings.
"We were afraid of further legal challenges in the state," Kehoe said.
The
city, home to both a federal trial court that struck down Proposition 8
as unconstitutional and the 9th Circuit, has been the epicenter of the
state's gay marriage movement since then-Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered his
administration in February 2004 to issue licenses to gay couples in
defiance of state law.
A little more than four
years later, the California Supreme Court, which is also based in San
Francisco, struck down the state's one-man, one-woman marriage laws.
City
Hall was the scene of many more marriages in the 4 1/2 months before a
coalition of religious conservative groups successfully campaigned for
the November 2008 passage of Proposition 8, which amended the state
constitution to outlaw same sex marriages.
Standing
amid the beaming couples on Saturday, John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney of
the advocacy group Marriage Equality USA looked like proud fathers. The
men have been together 26 years, got married in February 2004, had their
union invalidated six months later and then became one of the 18,000
couples estimated to have tied the knot in California before Proposition
8 was enacted.
"I don't think getting a
license means as much to anyone who hasn't worked so long for it and
fought so hard for it," Gaffney said. "It's been a very long
engagement."
