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SAN FRANCISCO-Four years after San Francisco ignited a heated national debate by briefly allowing gay marriage, California's top court hears arguments on Tuesday about whether matrimony should be limited to a man and a woman.The hearing brings into focus the highest-profile U.S. fight over gay rights in recent years and the outcome could end up influencing legislation and litigation in other states on a matter that has been a hot-button issue in election campaigns."California's a bellwether state. What happens here, blows east," said Larry Bowler, a retired deputy sheriff from Sacramento, who opposes gay marriage, outside the courthouse.San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom forced the issue by suddenly issuing gay marriage licenses in February 2004. More than 4,000 homosexual couples took him up on the offer, before a lower court halted the process.California's Supreme Court ruled later that year that Newsom, mayor of a city long at the forefront of the fight for gay rights, had no authority to perform weddings for same-sex couples and voided the marriages. The same court, just across the street from City Hall, where the gay marriages took place, now decides the larger question whether California can legally bar same-sex matrimony."We're married. We're just ready for the state and everyone else to catch up with us," said Davina Kotulski, who married her partner Molly McKay in 2004 at City Hall."We're real people and we desire the same rights as everyone else," said McKay, who held a bouquet of white roses as the couple waited to enter the court building.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
