Mayor slams Bush 'politics'

2004-02-25 09:33

San Francisco - Scores of gay couples married in San Francisco on Tuesday as the city's mayor slammed President George W Bush's call for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

The mayor of the rebellious West Coast city hit back just as California's top legal official prepared to go to the state's supreme court to get a decision on whether a disputed ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

The city began issuing marriage licences to gay couples on February 12 in an open challenge to state laws banning the practice, marrying more than three thousand same-sex couples in the matrimonial blitz, ignoring furious opposition from Bush, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other top officials.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, who contends that the laws are unconstitutional because they are discriminatory, launched a blistering attack on Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The newly-installed mayor said Americans should be "deeply saddened" by Bush's decision to "support enshrining discrimination in our constitution" simply to please the right-wing of his Republican Party in an election year.

"Throughout our history, the constitution has been used to expand freedom and fight discrimination. Today, President Bush has chosen a path that runs counter to our nation's most cherished values of freedom and justice."

"It is a sad day when he turns on his own citizens in order to seek re-election," said the mayor. "Yesterday, President Bush began his campaign; today his first step is to try and divide Americans."

Meanwhile, as officials at city hall married more than 50 gay couples, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he would take the dispute to California's highest court.

Lockyer said that the move would force a final decision on whether Newsom's claim that state laws that define marriage as being between a man and a woman unconstitutionally discriminate against gays.

"The Supreme Court has the authority to stop a city's violation of state law, and that immediate action... is necessary because this is a mater of statewide concern and urgency," Lockyer's office said in a statement.

Lockyer, whose action came after Schwarzenegger instructed him to take immediate legal steps to halt the marriages which he said posed an "imminent risk to civil order," said he would petition the court on Friday.

But he opposed Bush's plans to amend the country's constitution over the issue as unnecessary.

Hundreds of gays and lesbians rallied to express their "outrage" over Bush's backing of a constitutional change, with the mayor of the mostly-gay city of West Hollywood, near Los Angeles.

"I was stunned, outraged and angry to hear what the president has done," said mayor Jeff Prang.

"I think he has launched a war, a battle, that is of hatred and divisiveness in an attempt to amend the Constitution for the first time in our history to proactively deny equal protection under the law to a group."

- AFP