Family
Mar. 26, 2004
Same-Sex Marriage Suits May Be Joined
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco Superior Court judges ironed out some procedural wrinkles Wednesday in two lawsuits seeking to validate same-sex marriage.
Superior Court Judge James Warren scheduled a hearing April 1 on the city's motion to consolidate the two lawsuits.
A lawyer for the city said she was happy that the judge agreed to hear the motion on an expedited schedule.
"From the city's perspective, it can't wait," said Deputy City Attorney Sherri Sokeland Kaiser.
If consolidated, under local court rules the cases would probably land before Warren. However, Shannon Minter, a lawyer for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, noted that judges enjoy discretion to move the cases as they see fit, notwithstanding the local rule.
Also Wednesday, lawyers representing the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, a nonprofit group opposed to same-sex marriage, filed twin motions to intervene in the case. Terry L. Thompson, an Alamo lawyer representing the organization, said he will ask the court to hear his motion at that same April 1 hearing.
Thompson said the group wants to get involved in the cases because Attorney General Bill Lockyer has made statements sympathetic to the cause of marrying couples of the same gender.
"The attorney general has publicly stated that he supports the city's decision," Thompson said. "We think it's important to have someone on the same side as the attorney general that has the interest of the citizens [in mind]."
A lawyer for the city said it would oppose the group's motion to intervene.
Mayor Gavin Newsom set off a firestorm of litigation Feb. 12 when he ordered the city clerk to allow same-sex couples to marry. Three lawsuits were filed almost immediately on the issue, but the state Supreme Court stayed them and agreed to hear the limited question of whether Newsom holds authority to act on his own constitutional beliefs.
The high court invited the parties to file suits on the underlying question: whether state family code statutes limiting marriage to male-female couples are constitutional.
Two groups took that invitation. The first case was filed on behalf of the city by the city attorney's office and Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin. It seeks a judicial declaration that family codes excluding couples of the same gender from marriage are unconstitutional, and an order telling the state registrar to record all same-sex marriage licenses issued by the city and to instruct local registrars to allow same-sex couples the right to marry. CCSF v. State, 429539.
The second case was filed by a coalition of lawyers, including Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the ACLU of Northern California, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Steefel, Levitt & Weiss and David C. Codell. They filed on behalf of six same-sex couples who had appointments to get married but were denied the opportunity when the state Supreme Court halted the marriages.
Their lawsuit seeks similar declarations, plus an order to the state and its agents to supply gender-neutral marriage certificates and to hold a conference of local registrars so that marriage certificates can be issued "in a gender-neutral manner." Woo v. Lockyer, 504038.
Tyler Cunningham
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