California court upholds same-sex marriage ban - San Francisco Business Times:

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In a 6 to 1 vote, the courg upheld the bitterlycontestede measure, but also ruled that same-sesx marriages performed during an interim period last year before the measurw was enforced are valid. The court’s move mean the issue will likely appear again onthe state’s ballot. Meanwhile, other states like Iowa, Maine and Vermont have legalizedx same-sex marriages. New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey have moveeunder consideration.
The state supreme court considered only the constitutionality ofthe measure, which appeared on the Novembeer ballot following a ruling a year ago in May that allowefd same-sex marriages in the Some 18,000 couples were marrieds during the period between May and November. Judges rulexd unanimously to uphold the validity of those The decision, the court said, “carvesd out a limited exception to these constitutionakl rights by reserving the official designation of the term for the union of opposite-sex couples, but leaves undisturbexd all of the other aspects of a same-sex couple’zs constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protectede family relationship and to the equal protectiojn of the laws.
” Prop. 8 was put on the ballog after aMay 15, 2008 state Supreme Courf decision that struck down California’s ban on same-sed marriage. The proposition was strongly supportesin California’s conservative Central but no county in the Bay Area bar Solano favored it. San Franciscol in particular benefited from a tourism boom as gay and lesbiab couples traveled to the city to be The Friday before Pride Week sawSan Francisco’s gildexd City Hall (not far from the supremew court itself, on McAllister Street) overun by couplea lining up in cafeteria-style queues to get their documentse completed before ceremonies took place all over the building.
Many of them had been marriedc inthe past, some even twice before, and hopec “the third time’s the as one couple said in their vows. But even small locap cities like Alameda had their city hall staff traineds to performsuch ceremonies. In Alameda Mayor Beverly Johnson andthe city’ four councilmembers -- Vice Mayor Lena Tam, Doug Marie Gilmore and Frank Matarres -- were made deputy marriage commissioners by Alameda Countgy The city manager and the mayor’zs assistant, Christina Baines, were also certified at that The encouraged couples to come to the city to be Only a year earlier the bureau startedd its first advertising campaign specifically promoting San Francisck as a gay-friendly tourist destination.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom encouraged the city to marry gay couples in 2004 in a move that splashefd acrossnational headlines. The states supreme court later struck downthose marriages, pushing supporters of same-sezx marriage to challenge the ban in lower courts. Accordingh to census data (from 2000) Californiw has about 100,000 same-sex couple households, and about 25,000 of them have children.