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national
Calif. clerks: When does gay-marriage ban begin?
Some same-sex couples allowed to marry post-election
Published Thursday, 20-Nov-2008 in issue 1091
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – County clerks across California are clamoring for legal advice to resolve confusion about when to begin the same-sex marriage ban that voters passed last week in a ballot initiative.
At least three same-sex couples have obtained marriage licenses since the Nov. 4 passage of the measure overturning the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
Despite California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s declaration that the state wouldn’t recognize any same-sex unions after Election Day, confused clerks kept handing out licenses for days.
Complicating matters further, some couples who signed their paperwork before Nov. 4 and have yet to say “I do” will be requesting civil marriage ceremonies, gay-rights attorneys say.
County officials who inquired with Brown’s office about how to handle the situation were told to ask the state’s 58 county attorneys. That puts local authorities in the uncomfortable position of interpreting the law for themselves, said Merced County Clerk Stephen Jones, whose office allowed a male couple to fill out marriage forms on Nov. 5.
“We weren’t guaranteeing couples that their marriage licenses would be good, but our attorney said we had to keep issuing them, so that’s what we did,” said Jones, who called off same-sex marriages on Nov. 7. “His opinion was that those marriages are good until we get a final count of the election results.”
That may not happen until mid-December.
The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials has told its members to suspend all same-sex marriages, unless they receive different advice from a state agency or the final tally of votes shows that the proposition failed.
Gay-rights advocates have filed three legal challenges asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8 on the grounds that voters don’t have the authority to revoke equal rights. They say only the state Legislature can do that.
“We’re in a real limbo period right now,” said Shannon Minter, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “There is a good chance that some of these marriages could turn out to be valid, depending on what the court does.”
It’s unclear how many couples have gotten married since the vote, said Rebecca Martinez, president of the clerks’ association.
In Sacramento, a lesbian couple and two men from nearby suburbs said their vows Nov. 5 hours after Proposition 8 passed, officials said.
In Norwalk, about 15 miles south of Los Angeles, the registrar’s office kept handing out licenses until at least midmorning, but officials said they couldn’t tell whether any same-sex couples had tied the knot because the forms don’t track participants’ gender.
From June 16 – when the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage went into effect – until Nov. 4, an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples in California tied the knot.
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