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Same-sex weddings under way in California after stay is lifted
What a bunch of whiners those anti-gay folk are! I especially like the phrase "enemy of the people."
By Pete Williams and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News
Two California women were being married Friday afternoon after a federal appeals court dissolved the stay blocking same-sex marriage in California.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights said late Friday that both couples who challenged Proposition 8 — the California law that had barred same-sex marriage in California — would be married immediately. Nicholas Pacilio, a spokesman for state Attorney General Kamala Harris, told NBC News that Harris was already in San Francisco officiating at the wedding of one of the two couples, Sandy Stier and Kris Perry.
"Gay and lesbian couples have waited so long for this day and for their fundamental right to marry," she said in a statement. "Finally, their loving relationships are as legitimate and legal as any other."
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lifted the stay two days after the Supreme Court declined to rule on Prop 8, thereby upholding a lower court's decision overturning the measure. The appeals court had blocked enforcement of that ruling pending the Supreme Court decision.
The justices also struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law passed by Congress that barred recognition of same-sex marriages.
Supreme Court rulings generally don't take effect for 25 days. But Harris had called on the 9th Circuit to lift its stay as soon as possible Wednesday after Gov. Jerry Brown told the state's 58 counties to prepare for same-sex marriages.
Brown issued an order Friday afternoon making that official, declaring that "marriage licenses must be issued to same-sex couples immediately."
The Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund, which sponsored the ballot initiative, called the appeals court's decision an "outrageous act of judicial tyranny," saying it had been deprived of "our right to ask for reconsideration."
"Homosexual marriage is not happening because the people changed their mind," the group said in a statement. "It isn't happening because the appellate courts declared a new constitutional right. It's happening because enemies of the people have abused their power to manipulate the system and render the people voiceless."
What a bunch of whiners those anti-gay folk are! I especially like the phrase "enemy of the people."