City Officials marry gay couple

SAN FRANCISCO -- In a bold political and legal challenge to California law, city authorities officiated the marriage of a lesbian couple Thursday and said they will issue more gay marriage licenses.\nMeanwhile, in Massachusetts, legislative leaders met Thursday to try and find words banning gay marriage -- but legalize civil unions -- expressing optimism as they reconvened their constitutional convention.\nThe act of civil disobedience in San Francisco was coordinated by Mayor Gavin Newsom and top-city officials, and was intended to beat a conservative group to the punch.\nThe group, Campaign for California Families, had planned to go to court Friday to get an injunction preventing the city from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.\nLongtime-lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, were hurriedly issued a license and were married just before noon by City Assessor, Mabel Teng, in a closed-door civil ceremony at city Hall, Newsom's spokesman, Peter Ragone said. The two have been a couple for 51 years.\nRagone said beginning at noon, officials would begin issuing marriage licenses to any gay couple applying for one. One lesbian couple had already lined up outside city hall, one of the women wearing a white wedding dress.\nLyon and Martin said after the brief ceremony they were going home to rest and did not plan anything to celebrate. The couple seemed proud of what they had done.\nThursday's marriage runs counter to a ballot measure California voters approved in 2000 defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.\nNo state legally sanctions gay marriage, though Massachusetts could become the first, this spring. The Massachusetts high court has ruled gays are entitled under the state constitution to marry.\nState lawmakers later passed a domestic partner law -- that, when it goes into effect in 2005 -- will offer the most generous protections to gays outside Vermont.\nMayor Newsom was not present for the wedding Thursday. The two official witnesses were Kate Kendell, director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and former city official Roberta Achtenberg.\nThe CCF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\nIn Massachusetts, leaders said they hoped to finally reach an agreement after two other versions of a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages were narrowly defeated during the much-anticipated convention's opening day Wednesday.\n"Things break down in this building by the minute, but it's going to be interesting," said Senate minority leader, Brian Lees, a republican. "I'm cautiously optimistic."\nMassachusetts was thrust into the epicenter of the contentious social, political, religious and legal debate over gay marriages in November when the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 it was unconstitutional to ban gay couples from marrying, a decision reaffirmed last week.\n"We're talking about a wide, wide variety of options and potential amendments," said House Speaker Thomas Finneran, an ardent opponent of gay marriage. "Nobody's in a position, really, to insist on anything other than good faith efforts on all sides. We're open to all sorts of ideas."\nAny constitutional amendment would have to get 101 votes in the constitutional convention -- which is a joint session of the state House and Senate. It would have to get 101 votes again in the 2005-06 legislative session, and would then need the approval of voters in November 2006.