Last week it was florida, now California.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040813/D84E918G1.html
The California Supreme Court voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco earlier this year, a move that will likely spur a new round of litigation about whether California's Constitution allows the weddings.
The seven justices on Thursday all said Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to issue the licenses and perform the ceremonies violated a 1977 state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and woman.
The justices separately decided with a 5-2 vote to nullify the 3,995 marriages performed between Feb. 12 and March 11, when the court halted the weddings.
The court focused its ruling on the limits of local government authority, and did not resolve whether the California Constitution would permit a same-sex marriage. That question will have to wait as a flurry of lawsuits and countersuits over the gay weddings rise through the state's courts.
Chief Justice Ronald George, writing for the majority, noted that Thursday's ruling doesn't address "the substantive legal rights of same sex couples." Instead, it insists that local officials can't legislate state law from city halls or county government centers.
About a dozen gay and lesbian couples, some wearing wedding dresses and tuxedos, waited on the steps of the Supreme Court building, and some cried when the decision was read.
While the same-sex marriages had virtually no legal value, their nullification dismayed Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in San Francisco.
States right issue. I'm still in favor of a civil union but this shows a constitutional amendment wasn't needed.
Looks like the sysytem is working!
