SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a motion Friday calling for resumption of same-sex weddings in the state.

Brown filed the motion after U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker previously overturned Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban.

Walker ruled the law violates federal equal protections and due process laws.

However, he agreed to block gay marriages from immediately resuming until he can consider arguments on whether to keep the ban in effect while its supporters take their appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

It was unclear when Walker would issue a ruling on that issue.

The outcome in the appeals court could force the U.S. Supreme Court to confront the question of whether gays have a constitutional right to wed.

Currently, same-sex couples can legally wed only in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.

California voters passed Proposition 8 five months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions and an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples already had tied the knot.

Walker presided over a 13-day trial earlier this year that was the first in federal court to examine if states can prohibit gays from getting married without violating the constitutional guarantee of equality.

Supporters argued the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing.

Opponents said that tradition or fears of harm to heterosexual unions were legally insufficient grounds to discriminate against gay couples.

ST. PAUL (AP) - The head of Target Corp. apologized Thursday over a political donation to a business group backing a conservative Republican for Minnesota governor, which angered some employees and sparked talk of a customer boycott.

Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel wrote employees to say the discount retailer was “genuinely sorry” over the way a $150,000 contribution to MN Forward donation played out. Steinhafel said Target would set up a review process for future political donations.

MN Forward is running TV ads supporting Republican Tom Emmer, an outspoken conservative opposed to same-sex marriage and other gay-rights initiatives that have come before Minnesota’s Legislature.

Steinhafel said the contribution from the corporate treasury to a political effort, which until this year wasn’t allowed, was designed to support his stance on economic issues. Ads run by the group were focused on budget policy, not social issues.

“While I firmly believe that a business climate conducive to growth is critical to our future, I realize our decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate, and for that I am genuinely sorry,” Steinhafel wrote.

He added, “The diversity of our team is an important aspect of our unique culture and our success as a company, and we did not mean to disappoint you, our team or our valued guests.”

OutFront Minnesota, a gay-rights advocacy group, posted an open letter urging Target to take back its money from MN Forward. And “Boycott Target” Facebook groups began to appear.

The executive director from OutFront Minnesota didn’t immediately return a phone message.

Target is known in Minnesota for helping sponsor the annual Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival.

The reaction to Target’s donation highlights the potential risks for businesses that seek to take advantage of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that prohibited campaign donations from company funds. The ruling changed regulations in about half the states, but the Target donation in Minnesota was among the first major new corporate moves to come to light.

According to public campaign reports, other contributors to MN Forward include Red Wing Shoes, Best Buy Co., Pentair Inc., Hubbard Broadcasting Inc., Davisco Foods International Inc. and Polaris Industries Inc.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says it regrets a federal judge’s ruling overturning a ban on gay marriage in California.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker made his ruling Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who claimed the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, violated their civil rights.

In 2008, church leaders urged Mormons to give their time and money to support Proposition 8, which passed with 52 percent of the vote.

Church members were among the campaign’s most vigorous volunteers and by some estimates contributed tens of millions of dollars to the effort. In a statement, the church said the decision reopens a vigorous debate about over the right of the people to define marriage.

(AP) Exclusive - Republican Sharron Angle believes the clergy should be allowed to endorse candidates from the pulpit and opposes laws allowing gays to adopt children, according to a questionnaire by the Nevada Senate hopeful that was obtained by The Associated Press.

Angle, who is trying to unseat Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, completed the four-page questionnaire for a conservative political action committee that has endorsed her candidacy.

The document provides a window into Angle’s social and moral views, which would place her among Congress’ most conservative members at a time of ongoing culture wars over gay rights, abortion and the boundaries between religion and government.

Among her positions, outlined in answers to 36 yes-or-no questions, Angle would oppose making sexual orientation a protected minority in civil rights laws. In a section on school prayer, she affirms that students and teachers should be able to talk openly about religion in schools, including the right to “publicly acknowledge the Creator.”

The federal government bans churches from participating in political campaigns on behalf of candidates, but Angle said clergy should be able to express views on candidates from the pulpit.

Angle, a Southern Baptist, has talked openly about her faith and how it informs her politics. She describes her campaign as a spiritual calling, and accused Reid and Democrats in Washington of trying to “make government our God” by expanding entitlement programs.

Reid’s campaign has called those comments “radical” and “frightening.”

In the questionnaire, submitted to the Washington-based Government is not God political committee, Angle said she would vote in Congress to prohibit abortion “in all cases,” and considers a fetus a person under the Constitution.

The Washington-based group’s website says it supports candidates who oppose abortion rights and “stand firmly against the unbiblical welfare state that is destroying the spiritual and economic greatness of our nation.”

Angle favors laws to restrict the production and sale of pornography, and believes that federal involvement in public schools should end. Also, she would oppose federal efforts to regulate private schools.

Angle’s campaign has attracted support from conservative groups, including the Tea Party Express and the low-tax Club for Growth. She has been blaming Reid for Nevada’s dismal economic condition - it leads the nation in joblessness and foreclosures - while Reid has sought to depict her as an extremist who would dismantle Social Security and Medicare.

Angle’s views on church-state separation have been an issue in the race.

In a June interview on Nevada’s KVBC’s news interview program “Face to Face with Jon Ralston,” Angle was asked about minutes from a 1995 legislative hearing in which she reportedly said the doctrine of church-state separation is unconstitutional. Asked on the program if the separation of church and state arises out of the Constitution, Angle answered “no.” She said Thomas Jefferson is often misquoted and that he wanted to protect churches from being taken over by a state religion. The drafters of the Constitution “didn’t mean that we couldn’t bring our values to the political forum,” she said.

Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based advocacy group, said allowing clergy to make endorsements from the pulpit would turn houses of worship into “electoral machinery.”

Angle spokesman Jarrod Agen said the nation has a long history of clergy speaking out on matters of conscience and Angle “believes it is improper for the federal government to use the threat of revoking tax exempt status against churches and pastors.”

On adoptions, Angle believes children should have a relationship with a mother and a father, and she believes education should be managed at the local level “not by bureaucrats in Washington,” Agen added. l