Mayor vows to continue same-sex marriage licenses

SAN FRANCISCO -- A defiant Mayor Gavin Newsom yesterday pledged to continue issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in San Francisco and accused President Bush of a "shameful" and "cowardly act" of trying to amend the US Constitution to deny civil rights to gay and lesbian Americans.

Newsom criticized Bush's support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage at a crowded news conference in his City Hall office.

The president "is really standing at the courthouse door" and telling gay couples "that they should not have the same rights and privileges and obligations that my wife and I have, and that he has. He should keep his hands off the Constitution," Newsom said.

As the mayor spoke, gay couples wearing tuxedos, carrying bouquets, clutching marriage licenses, and accompanied by families and friends exchanged vows in the ornate rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall. Since Feb. 12, when Newsom gave the go-ahead, San Francisco has issued more than 3,200 marriage licenses to same-sex couples from the Bay area, other California communities, and across the nation.

Chris Sadler, 40, of Emeryville, Calif., who married his partner, George Whiting, 48, yesterday, said the couple felt it was urgent to wed because they expect a court in California will put a halt to the San Francisco weddings. "We needed to get this done, to stand up for our rights and show that our feelings matter, and that we should be respected," Sadler said.

Whiting said he was disappointed but not surprised that Bush had endorsed the proposed constitutional amendment, but said he could see no harm that would come from his marriage to Sadler.

"I am so proud of Mayor Newsom for what he has done," Whiting said. "He is the kind of leader I look for in politics."

Newsom, 36, self-confident, and only 46 days into his first term as mayor, set off the social equivalent of a San Francisco earthquake by permitting civil marriages of same-sex couples. He has been vilified by traditional-values and conservative religious groups, accused of fomenting civil unrest by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and abandoned by other California Democrats, including US Senator Dianne Feinstein, for overstepping his authority and flouting a state law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat and a gay activist, has criticized Newsom for undercutting the legal process in Massachusetts, where gay marriages are set by the Supreme Judicial Court to be legal May 17, and for generating a conservative backlash and support for a constitutional amendment through his actions.

"I do not, as mayor, think that I took the oath of office to discriminate against people, period," Newsom said in an interview. "And I am not going to abdicate my responsibility to another day or another state or another moment in time, when I feel a great obligation to do the right thing."

Newsom, a former San Francisco supervisor, acknowledges that he has "pushed the edge of the envelope," but yesterday he denied that his actions provoked Bush's response. Newsom said Bush had signaled his support for the proposed amendment well before San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

"This train had already left the station," Newsom said. "This was hardly a response to what has happened in San Francisco or Massachusetts. They wanted a wedge issue. The president is appealing to the right wing of his party, and it is shameful to play politics with people's lives, but that is what the president is attempting to do."

Friday, Attorney General Bill Lockyer will take the case against same-sex marriage to the California Supreme Court and petition for a quick ruling on the legality of the gay-marriage licenses. Yesterday, two conservative Republicans who helped organize last year's successful gubernatorial recall election opened a petition drive to remove Lockyer, a Democrat, for failing to enforce the state's ban on same-sex marriages.

Newsom contends that the equal-protection provisions of the California constitution bar discrimination against gay marriage. "We are going to stand on principle here in San Francisco . . . we'll continue to do what we have done for the last 15 days," Newsom said.

"This is just the beginning of the fight," said Randi Anderson, who traveled from New York City with her partner, Maureen Bobrovnicky, to become "spouses for life" in San Francisco yesterday. "There have been lots of civil rights struggles where people have had to push ahead, even when the politicians said no."