California Judge Rules Against Ban on Same-sex Marriage

Gay rights groups in California were celebrating victory in the latest round of the protracted struggle over gay marriage yesterday after a judge in San Francisco ruled that the state's ban on homosexual marriage was unconstitutional.

"The denial of marriage to same-sex couples appears impermissibly arbitrary," said Richard Kramer, a San Francisco superior court judge. "Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so."

Gavin Newsome, San Francisco's mayor, said: "This is an important day, but hardly is this effort complete. It is inevitable there will be an appeal."

The ruling follows Mr Newsome's decision last year to instruct city officials to license gay marriages in defiance of state law.

His action led to the issuing of more than 4,000 gay marriage licences in the city.

The four-week marriage spree, which attracted gay couples from across the US, including celebrities such as Roseanne Barr, was halted when the California supreme court, backed by Bill Lockyer, the state's attorney general, ruled that the mayor had exceeded his authority.

But the state supreme court asked a lower court to rule on the broader issue.

That court's decision, handed down yesterday, places San Francisco once more at the heart of the US debate over gay marriage.

In his ruling, Judge Kramer said creating benefits for same-sex couples, such as pension rights, was not sufficient.

"The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts: separate but equal," he wrote. Opponents of gay marriage, and the main presidential candidates in last year's election, said they favoured giving gay couples equal rights, while insisting marriage should be between heterosexuals.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Judge Kramer wrote.

"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional."

Ultimately, the matter is likely to be decided by the state's supreme court and by the state legislature. Two bills currently before the legislature would place a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages before the voters in a November ballot.

In 2000 California voters approved a proposition defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.