Appeals court puts California's gay marriages on hold (Roundup)

Aug 17, 2010, 1:57 GMT

San Francisco - A federal appellate court on Monday froze the implementation of gay marriage in California until at least December, when a three-judge panel will hear arguments in the case.

The issue to be debated in December will be whether gay-marriage opponents have legal standing to appeal a decision earlier this month by federal District Judge Vaughn Walker, who overturned California's ban on gay marriage.

The appeals court order blocks the resumption of same-sex marriages until after the case is heard.

Walker's ruling would have allowed marriage licenses to be issued to gay and lesbian couples as early as Wednesday.

He threw out California's ban on same-sex marriage, saying that the voter-approved restriction violated the US Constitution. Walker's ruling overturned a 2009 decision by California's state supreme court, which had upheld a statewide referendum in 2008 that reserved marriage for two people of the opposite sex.

Walker's August 4 decision represented the first time a federal judge had ruled that the US Constitution protects the right of same- sex couples to marry.

California could become only the sixth state in the US to permit gay marriage, after Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, Maine and Vermont.

The current case could affect the approximately 30 of the 50 US states that have clauses in their state constitutions that define marriage as only between one man and one woman.

In a 136-page ruling, Walker said that the constitutional right to marry 'protects an individual's choice of marital partner regardless of gender.' He added that domestic partnerships in California, available to same-sex couples, are a 'substitute and inferior institution' that lack the social meaning and cultural status of marriage.

The gay marriage issue has been unsettled for years in California, where the top state court had given the green light to same sex marriage in May 2008, only to have 52 per cent of voters in November 2008 ban the practice in a ballot question pushed by traditional church organizations.

That ban was upheld in May 2009 by the California Supreme Court, in a ruling that did still recognize the 18,000 gay marriages that were licensed by the state from May-November 2008 before the referendum was approved.

The case could eventually reach the US Supreme Court.