The authors' point, that it should be harder for voters to amend the California Constitution, has merit -- as long as we also make it harder for judges to "amend" the Constitution too.

Essentially, that's what happened last May, when four justices decided that same-sex marriage suddenly became a basic constitutional right.

Although Proposition 8 won in Los Angeles County, a Times database analysis of voting patterns found some interesting changes since 2000, when voters approved another ballot measure against gay marriage.

"You decided to live your life out loud. You fell in love and you said 'I do.' Tonight, we await a verdict," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said, speaking to a roaring crowd.

An early October filing by the "yes" campaign reported so many contributions that the secretary of state's campaign finance website crashed.

Perhaps more powerfully, the Proposition 8 campaign also seized on the issue of education, arguing in a series of advertisements and mailers that children would be subjected to a pro-gay curriculum if the measure was not approved.

"Gay-Rights Advocates to Challenge Proposition 8 in Court"

After losing at the polls, gay-rights advocates filed a legal challenge today in California Supreme Court to Proposition 8, a long-shot effort that the measure's supporters called an attempt to subvert the will of voters.

The legal action contends that Proposition 8 actually revises the state Constitution by altering such fundamental tenets as equal-protection guarantees. A measure to revise the state Constitution can be placed before voters only by the Legislature.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Equality California and six same-sex couples who did not marry before Tuesday's election but would like to marry now.

The state high court has twice before invalidated measures as illegal revisions, but some legal analysts expressed doubt that the Proposition 8 challenge would succeed. Similar attempts to overturn anti-gay-marriage measures have failed in Oregon and Alaska.

A spokesman for San Francisco City Atty. Dennis Herrera said he would also file a legal challenge.

Paul Waters and Kevin Voecks of Valley Village, who married more than four months ago, were stunned today.

Dunlop married her partner in June and has two children.

"It's really hard when you know your neighbors are voting on your marriage," she said.

With only a few days left before gays can marry in California,

nine major gay rights groups asked couples Tuesday not to sue the federal government or other states to have their California nuptials recognized, saying that legal action could harm the marriage equality movement.

In an unusual six-page memorandum, written for same-sex couples,

groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to Lambda Legal warned that lawsuits would invite "bad" court rulings that could take years to overturn.

The memo cautioned that the U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally refused to embrace major social change until many states have already acted and that the battle for marriage must be orchestrated strategically, state by state, court by court.

Twenty-seven states have passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, and only the high courts of California and Massachusetts have approved it. A ballot measure to reinstate California's marriage ban is headed for the November ballot.

If the U.S. Supreme Court considered the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which permits states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage in other states, the current court would likely split 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy being an unpredictable swing vote, some scholars believe.

Jon W. Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, called the joint statement "unprecedented," particularly since it came from so many groups.

The memorandum says marriage rights should be tackled first in state courts, and only in states with courts "that may be ready to do the right thing." Marriage cases are pending before the high courts in Iowa and Connecticut, and gay rights groups are hoping the legislatures of New York and New Jersey will eventually remove [gender from] marriage [licenses].

Unlike Massachusetts, California has no residency requirements for couples wishing to wed, and tens of thousands of same-sex couples are expected to travel to the state to marry. Experts believe that at least some will return home and bring legal actions.

Asked whether the memo was likely to prevent lawsuits, Davidson said: "I guess we'll just have to see whether it is successful or not."

The statement said that "early and unnecessary" court losses over marriage rights in Arizona and Indiana "hurt our other cases." Courts in New York, Washington state and Maryland narrowly rejected same-sex marriage and adopted some of the "contorted reasoning" from those decisions, the memo said.

Instead of suing, same-sex couples should work against the California anti-gay marriage ballot measure and promote marriage rights in conversations with friends, co-workers, neighbors and employers, the statement said.

The understanding of legal concepts such as marriage have changed throughout history.

All gay people are asking for is that others follow the Golden Rule and treat us as they would like to be treated -- as full members of society who are provided the same right to marry the person they love, just as everyone else is treated.

That's why amending the state Constitution to take away some people's rights and forever treat them as second-class citizens is a very dangerous proposition.

Who's next? What would keep the people from voting to deny equal marriage rights to any other group that isn't the majority?

Even though you disagree with the outcome, Glen, you must agree that the impact of the state Supreme Court's decision is likely to extend well beyond California.

California's Supreme Court has long been one of the nation's most highly regarded courts.

Connecticut's high court is one of those. That court is expected to rule soon on the same issue decided in California: whether the fundamental right to marry and the constitutional guarantee of equal protection can be satisfied by relegating one group of people to some other status with a different name.

The decision found that allowing same-sex couples to marry, however, does not deprive opposite-sex couples or their children of any rights.

The decision also powerfully explains why laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation should be viewed with suspicion.

Although sexual orientation is irrelevant to the ability to contribute to society, negative attitudes about gay people often have led to them being singled out for unequal treatment.

Voters are tired of politics that seek to divide us by our differences.

The problem with "slippery slope" arguments like yours, Glen, is that they assume that society and the law can't make distinctions between situations that are different from one another.  But we can tell apples from oranges.

"Past judicial decisions explain why our nation's culture has considered the latter types of relationships inimical to the mutually supportive and healthy family relationships promoted by the constitutional right to marry."

Civil marriage and religious marriage serve different purposes in our democratic society. Civil marriage is a contract between two adults and the government through which we govern such vital matters as a couple's responsibility to each other and their children.

We need civil marriage so the legal system has a way of answering such questions as who inherits in the absence of a will, who gets to make medical decisions for someone who is incapacitated, which communications get to be kept confidential, who must file their taxes jointly and who has an obligation of financial support.

Religious marriages, on the other hand, are defined by the many faiths present in our pluralistic society, and the right to hold different religious views on marriage is protected by the constitutional principle of church-state separation.

California cannot get out of the marriage business and leave it up to churches and other groups because, in the state Supreme Court's words, we need some form of "official government sanction" of the family unit.

Changing this would be an extreme strategy undertaken solely to keep same-sex couples from marriage.

If California were to stop issuing marriage licenses, different-sex couples would face major problems whenever they crossed state lines or dealt with the federal government.

Apparently, your view is that the public should have a say on who their neighbors get to marry.

I think that's quite dangerous, and I hope the voters won't start us down that path in November.

When you say that allowing same-sex couples to marry is an "assault on the family," whose family do you mean?

And how is it an assault on anyone's family if our plaintiffs, Alexsis Beach and Rachel Lederman, who have lived together for 21 years, are finally allowed to wed? And precisely whose children would be harmed by their marriage? Their 11- and 8-year-old sons, who previously said they wanted to tell the judge that their parents should be able to get married just like everyone else's, will be overjoyed and more protected than they are now.

I challenge you to come up with any specific person who will suffer any harm by reason of this couple's marriage.

We simply want the same rights as everyone else, including what you refer to as the right at common law of free men (and, I'd add, women) to the pursuit of happiness.

If voters this November do have to vote on the proposed constitutional amendment that out-of-state forces spent $2 million trying to qualify for the ballot,

Same-sex marriage in California will undoubtedly make life more complicated for many other states. That's their problem, not California's, where the state Supreme Court should let the marriages go ahead this month as planned.

The California Supreme Court's decision clearing the way for such marriages is expected to draw thousands of couples from other states, who will clamor on their return home to have their married status accepted.

For starters, the ruling is likely to lead to a challenge of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, which defines marriage for federal purposes as occurring only between men and women and empowers states not to accept same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, even though the "full faith and credit clause" of the U.S. Constitution requires states to legally recognize one another's actions and records.

But the enforcement of constitutionally guaranteed rights is usually messy; remember the first months of school desegregation?

Live and let live.

Please tell me why an initiative on the November ballot barring same-sex marriage (a form of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation) is in accord with the California Constitution, when the state Supreme Court has already ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unconstitutional?

With all the troubles facing us, I would think that the yahoos in the hinterlands would have more important things to worry about than same-sex marriage. But, sadly, that's not the case. And if they find my tone insulting, so be it; I'm insulted by their idiotic initiative.

I'm 70-plus, straight and have been married to the same woman for more than 45 years. I don't feel a bit threatened by gay marriage.

Two 95-year-olds were recently married in Camarillo. I believe it is time to pass a state constitutional amendment to stop nonagenarian marriages.

They are few in number, and there are lots of us. We can easily outvote them.

Also, there is probably a paragraph in the Bible forbidding "nonas" from marrying.

If you look hard enough and are open-minded about interpretation, you can find just about anything you want in the Bible.

Despite the paranoia of "marriage-equality" advocates, ballot initiatives to enshrine man-woman marriage in state constitutions are not a political ploy to win elections. They are the only logical response to the constitutional lawsuits funded by the gay and lesbian community that threaten to impose the gay community's definition of marriage on the vast majority of Americans who prefer the traditional definition of marriage.

Jeez, I dont understand you people. Why is the ''traditional" view of marriage so important? GOP talking points like to use the phrase 'building block of society' but God forbid that they ever expand on that. 90% of people supported the ban on interracial marriage when it was struck down. Majority opinion has no bearing onthis argument.

How does a gay couple's marriage threaten my marriage if my marriage is on solid ground?

Two weeks after deciding same-sex couples are entitled to marry, the California Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to rule that physicians have no constitutional right to refuse medical treatment to gays on grounds it would violate their religious beliefs.

The justices' inclination emerged as the state high court heard arguments in a case that pits the religious freedom of physicians against the right of gays to be free from discrimination.

Several justices suggested during Wednesday's hearing that they would rule that religion was not a legal justification for two Christian physicians in San Diego County who declined to perform an intrauterine insemination for Lupita Benitez, a lesbian who sought to become pregnant in 1999.

Justice Carol A. Corrigan, who voted against same-sex marriage, appeared strongly in favor of Benitez's right to medical treatment.

Corrigan noted that the physicians were running a business.

She added that if they did not want to perform certain procedures, they could take up a different line of work.

She questioned whether it was appropriate for a doctor to tell a patient, "I am not going to do it for you because of who you are."

Chief Justice Ronald M. George suggested that the issue was not about whether doctors could refuse to perform a procedure at all but whether certain patients could be deprived a treatment that others received.

The doctors contend that their religious objections dealt with unmarried women, not only with lesbians, and that the state Constitution protects their right to exercise religious choices.

Benitez, 36, and her partner of 18 years, Joanne Clark, 49, now have three children conceived with medical help and donated semen.

In a brief interview after arguments, Benitez said she desperately wanted to bear a child and thought that the doctors believed that she was "not worthy of becoming a mother."

And if they want to have a relationship with another consenting adult, it is none of your business, it is none of my business, and it is certainly none of the government's business.

Thanks for the lawsuit. Threatening doctors with the loss of their license will result in fewer doctors willing to provide the procedure at all. Doctors not directly affected by the ruling will sense the negative practice environment and move elsewhere. Everyone loses. Furthermore, most citizens should object to the state deciding which religious beliefs are acceptable and which are not.

what's next if the high court doesn't tell the docs to do their job? telling black's you won't deliver their babies because your religion believes in white supremacy?

A license to practice medicine is conveyed by the state, and subject to state regulation. If state law requires medical services be provided without discrimination, and refusal to provide these services to a same sex couple is deemed discrimination, the physician should be required to provide those services or forfeit their license. Receipt of a state license to practice medicine requires the practitioner to adhere to applicable state laws. If someone's opposed to providing these services on grounds other than medical reasons, they shouldn't practice medicine CA or should practice in a state that does have nondiscriminatory regulations.

I think the leaning by the Court is correct. If you perform a service regardless of what it is, then it must be available to all. This means if you dispense medication, it must be available to all. If you perform abortion, it must be available to all. If you perform artificial insemination, it must be available to all. Etc. If you do not agree to dispense medication, you should not be in the business of dispensing medication.

PlanetOut, a media and entertainment company that conducts surveys about gay and lesbian consumers, says gay consumers earn 20% more than their straight counterparts, on average, and spend about 10% more on nuptials.

Marriage Amendment May Backfire on GOP

Two things already can be said about the pro-posed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that on Tuesday qualified for the Nov. 4 ballot.

One is that the coming campaign is sure to be nasty and divisive; the other is that recent history suggests that such electoral struggles over fundamental rights are likely to have unintended consequences.

Any time one group of Californians uses the ballot box as a tool to have another group declared less or different than everyone else -- and, therefore, entitled to fewer rights -- people take it personally and things get rough.

Those pushing the "Marriage Protection Amendment" have at their disposal the language of personal faith and religious tradition, which they surely will make the most of.

But the genius of the American system is that it recognizes majoritarian tyranny as a threat to liberty right alongside power concentrated in the hands of the few. That gives a besieged minority, which this ballot initiative surely makes of gays and lesbians, a well-tested political vocabulary with which to make the case against injustice.

You'd think that when it comes to an issue as fundamental as a person's right to marry the partner of his or her choice,

Protect Marriage, the organization seeking to overturn the recent decision by the California Supreme Court, presented the secretary of state with a petition bearing 1.1 million signatures -- and yet it is hardly a mass movement. California allows professional contractors that pay people to gather signatures for political measures, so anyone with enough money to spend can get an initiative on the ballot.

In this case, most of the money came from two wealthy Orange County residents who also happen to be fervent evangelical Christians.

If Barack Obama is on the presidential ballot in November, younger, well-educated voters are expected to turn out for him in unprecedented numbers, which could be decisive in the marriage amendment vote.

The one place The Times' survey found overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage is among evangelical Protestants, 83% of whom said they support a constitutional ban. That makes Ahmanson's and Atsinger's backing understandable, as well as the fact that the list of supporters on the amendment's website looks like a who's who of California's evangelical religious right. But notice that the Catholic bishops, Orthodox rabbis and Islamic imams -- who also hold traditional religious views -- are nowhere in sight.

In 1994, California Republicans thought they had a winning issue with Proposition 187, which would have denied all social services -- including healthcare and education -- to illegal immigrants.

Proposition 187 easily passed, but it ultimately was overturned by a federal court. Since then, only one Republican candidate has won a statewide election for president, governor or U.S. senator in California. That lone GOP exception is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which may be why he categorically opposes the Marriage Protection Amendment.

After fighting same-sex marriage for four years, the state Thursday urged the California Supreme Court to reject petitions that would delay enforcement of the court's landmark ruling permitting gays to wed [each other].

"This historic litigation is now concluded," wrote Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Christopher E. Krueger in a brief filed with the high court. "It is time for these proceedings to end."

California's change of heart came as 10 other states, including Florida and Utah, filed a brief in support of a request by gay marriage opponents to delay the effective date of the court ruling.

The offices of attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah protested that their states, which restrict marriage to unions of a man and a woman, would be inundated by litigation seeking to have them recognize same-sex nuptials in California.

The state said the group's request was improperly asking the court "to enjoin the exercise of a newly recognized fundamental constitutional right based on speculation that voters will abolish that right in the future."

The delay "would have the effect of mingling judicial processes with political processes, and would be tantamount to anticipatory implementation of the proposed initiative even before it is submitted to voters," Krueger argued.

Remember how your parents felt about desegregation? And how their parents objected to women's suffrage? And their parents felt about indoor fire? This may seem different, but it isn't.

Gays are going to be fully accepted by society.

You can either slow that process in a desperate attempt to keep the world safely the same, or you can help expedite that change and get to see what the future will be like.

So I'm asking you to vote against all your wisdom and experience.

I'm asking you to trust that the history of social change is full of uncomfortable lurches toward improvement through inclusion and equality.

Last week's Dust-Up on the future of [licensing] marriage drew many comments from three groups of objectors to the California Supreme Court's ending of the ban on same-sex marriage: Those who quoted Bible passages, those who suggested people start marrying their pets, and those outraged that the court had subverted "the will of the people."

Glen Lavy made the case for the people's will on Day 1 of the weeklong debate, though many commenters brought up the counterexample of Jim Crow.

According to a Field Poll released yesterday, a majority of Californians now favor giving rights to same-sex couples — and oppose a ban on [counterfeit] marriage.

Quite simply, more and more Californians no longer regard [counterfeit] marriage as loathsome or morally wrong – what is particularly striking about this attitudinal change is that it is definitely generational.

Younger voters are much less likely to vote to deny gay couples the right to marry than are older voters.

Two down, with 48 to go.

As the California Supreme Court decision outlawing this state's ban on same-sex marriage settles in,

we are being treated to the unmistakable cracking sounds of long-held, icy bigotries giving way to a wellspring of justice.

And, perhaps most telling of all, Macy's this week took out a full-page ad that solicited the business of same-sex couples planning their nuptials.

"First comes love. Then comes marriage," the ad proclaims beneath an image of two wedding rings. "And now it's a milestone every couple in California can celebrate."

It is bracing, after all, to realize how recently much of this nation blanched at interracial marriage,

Gay rights advocates had reason to celebrate on both coasts Thursday, with New York set to recognize same-sex [“]marriages[“] performed elsewhere and California preparing to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on June 17.

The guidelines from Janet McKee, chief of California's office of vital records, contained copies of new marriage forms that include lines for "Party A" and "Party B" instead of bride and groom.

Marriage was an institution to which we'd long been denied entry, a tool used to deem our entire relationship illegitimate.

"There is no dignity in having your heart broken by faceless bureaucratic bigots fighting to preserve their crabbed and medieval worldview, nor in having one's existence made subject to ballot propositions, nor in being used as a fundraising expedient by professional haters and hypocrites," was part of what she told our assembled family and friends.

But would you want your marriage put to a statewide popular vote?

You can't be a gay person in America, even in California, and be a complete stranger to discrimination.

This is the state -- my state, my government -- throwing open one arm to us, yet holding the other poised to slap us hard.

Twenty-six states have amended their constitutions to explicitly bar same-sex couples from marrying.

As the nation's most populous state, California often sets in motion social and political trends that sweep across the country. But legal experts on both sides of the fight over same-sex [“]marriage[“] say that the California Supreme Court's ruling giving gays and lesbians [counterfeit marriage licenses] is not likely to have a ripple effect.

For more than a decade, conservative activists have erected a series of legal barriers to prevent one state's move toward recognizing [counterfeit] marriages from setting in motion a national wave.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex [“]marriage[“]: Its Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled it was unconstitutional to deny this [“]right[“] to gay couples.

So, although we recognize that county clerks throughout California have a complicated job ahead gearing up for same-sex marriages -- such as, what should the license call what used to be "husband and wife"?

Some workers may have problems with interracial marriage too, but no one is suggesting that they be allowed to opt out of the duty to perform those constitutionally protected unions.

If they can't handle their jobs, they're free to apply for new ones elsewhere.

Religious groups and clergy are of course entitled to follow their own consciences in these matters. Public employees are not.

After sending initially confusing messages on the matter, Los Angeles County has rightly decided that both paid and volunteer marriage commissioners will be required to perform ceremonies for all who walk in the door.

According to your editorial, public employees should be forced to perform marriage ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples even if they object to doing so on religious grounds. Yet on March 14, the Times editorialized that the state should do away with loyalty oaths on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to require public employees to give up their 1st Amendment rights as a condition of employment.

What changed?

Brewer, 22, didn't come to Morehouse with the intent of changing it. But he found that he had no choice. He had arrived here from Oklahoma City pretty comfortable with himself: outspoken, proudly smart and, at 5 foot 9 and 300 pounds, hard to miss.

Early on, he decided he wouldn't water down his gay identity.

The 141-year-old college has played a key role in defining black manhood in America. But with a past steeped in religion, tradition and machismo, it has struggled to determine how homosexuality fits within that definition.

Brewer was selling the idea of a day of silence for the victims of homophobia and asking his fellow students to sign up.

After four years on the 3,000-student campus, Brewer seemed to know everyone who passed by -- the straight allies and the straights with hang-ups, the openly gay upperclassmen and the men on the down low, that is, straight to the world but open to gay affairs.

But the college offered him a full scholarship, and he grew intrigued by the idea of joining a brotherhood.

It was also difficult to ignore the fact that he had stepped into a place that had not come to terms with the presence of gay men on campus. There were the casually cruel statements from some of the straight guys and the tortuous code of silence from the guys on the down low.

There were ministers-in-training who tried to convert Brewer's gay friends with prayer. There were gay seniors who advised him to tone it down.

But the issue may have been exacerbated by the school's special mission. "Black colleges functioned for years and years to discredit the claims that black people were somehow inferior," said Horace Griffin, a Morehouse graduate and theology professor who has written about gay history.

Back when homosexuality was considered a perversion, he said, black colleges strove to deny that it was present on their campuses.

An uglier incident occurred in 2002, two years before Brewer arrived. A sophomore named Aaron Price beat a student with a baseball bat because he thought the man was making a sexual advance.

Price was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He worries about the health of the college's fledgling gay rights movement. The Safe Space group this year only had about five active members. Brewer decided that the week of gay rights events would be his legacy to the school he loves. The centerpiece was a panel discussion on homophobia, with Brewer as moderator.

A conservative legal group is asking the California Supreme Court to stay its decision legalizing same-sex marriage until voters get a chance to weigh in.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund wants the ruling stayed until November, when voters are likely to encounter a ballot measure that would amend the state's constitution to ban gay marriage.

In court papers submitted late Thursday, the group argues that allowing gay and lesbian couples to [obtain marriage licenses] before the election "risks legal havoc and uncertainty of immeasurable magnitude."

Much has been said about the religious institutions opposing same-sex marriage, but progressive-minded interfaith coalitions have been arguing in favor of it.

Gay men and women are human beings, and according to my faith of Islam, all human beings are equal. It is time we set aside prejudices and invite them in to pray along with us and treat them as equals. Let us try.

As an ordained Presbyterian minister and moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), I applaud the recent decision by the California Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage.

The Bible teaches us that we are all equal in God's sight. Indeed, Jesus reached out to those who were sexual minorities in his culture.

The state Supreme Court decision affirms society's commitment to equal protection under the law and is consistent with the values of my Christian faith.

With the ruling of the state Supreme Court striking down the separate but equal policy of domestic partnership as discriminatory, a severe injustice has been corrected.

If marriage is important to heterosexuals – most would say that it is very important – then how can it be denied to part of our population just because of how they were born?

I've listened to the sound bites of those who would create a constitutional amendment to deny the very basic right of marriage to some (while enjoying that same right themselves) and they are not rational:

They are doing it for the children. Which children?

There are hundreds of children of heterosexual parents in foster care who will not be helped at all by an amendment banning gay marriage, but there are children of gays and lesbians who will benefit from allowing their parents to marry.

Letting two women who have been together for more than 30 years marry will not mean anything to children of heterosexuals, but making a constitutional amendment to ban divorce and single parenting would.

It seems unseemly for anyone to have the right to vote to take away rights from others when they themselves are not affected.

They are trying to change the definition of traditional marriage. Can you imagine accusing women back in 1919 of trying to change the definition of a "traditional" voter?

They were only trying to change the definition from one that was exclusive to one that was inclusive, which is all that gays and lesbians are asking for today.

If we allow gays to be married then polygamists will want their multiple marriages legal. What an unfair claim to heap onto the already overburdened shoulders of gays and lesbians.

Polygamists get their authority from the Bible.

Traditional marriage is between a man and a woman. Marriage has been previously defined in these ways: as something your parents arranged; as something you could not get out of without paying money to the Vatican and getting an annulment; as something between family members to keep land in the family, and until 1948 in California, as something between members of the same race.

Gays and lesbians just want to validate their immoral alternative lifestyle. That is an insult to all gays and lesbians. They are born and grow up just like the rest of us. They play sports, learn to play musical instruments, go to college, and they love their families. The only difference is that the person that they choose as their soul-mate to live "happily ever after" with is of the same gender.