Last week, the newly elected, liberal Democratic Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, ordered City Hall to allow homosexual couples to obtain marriage licenses. Problem is, the state of California has a law forbidding same-sex marriage. The law came into existence as an initiative approved by the people of California in 2000 with over 60 percent of the vote.
Because he didn't like the law, as passed by the people of the state, Mayor Newsom decided that he had the authority to throw the state books out the window and permit his local government to flout the law of California.
One of the most interesting aspects of this fiasco is how the media has responded. In response to Mayor Newsom's abject disregard for the law and the will of the people of California, did the liberal editorial boards of newspapers across the nation condemn his actions?
Did they treat him with complete disdain as they did Judge Roy Moore who placed a Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Supreme Court building?
Nope.
Instead, they praised him for taking a "bold" stand.
Here are excerpts from some editorials that appeared in newspapers nationwide:
"Gay Marriage in the States"
Lately it has seemed as if gay marriage was taking over the national policy debate. Massachusetts has been embroiled in a heated constitutional battle because of it. The presidential campaign is circling hesitantly around it. And in the last few days in San Francisco, more than 2,000 gay couples from across the country have flocked to City Hall and stood in the rain to get the marriage licenses suddenly offered to them by the city.
The Massachusetts and San Francisco events are a welcome indication that the nation is having a long-overdue discussion about the right of gay people to marry, and that the states are beginning to serve as laboratories for reform in this important area. [...]
This page fully supports the right of gay men and lesbians to marry, and we believe that in time they will have this right across the nation. But we also see a practical value in how the issue is currently unfolding. Louis Brandeis, the great Supreme Court justice, said he believed that the states should serve as social laboratories for the nation. Massachusetts and California - and Vermont, before them, with its civil unions law - are fulfilling that role right now. They have already started a national discussion of gay marriage, a very healthy thing in itself. If gay marriage takes hold in Massachusetts or California - in both states, the issue is still up in the air - it will allow the residents of slower-moving states to observe the experiment in action.
-New York Times, February 18, 2004 (emphasis added)
"Newsom's Same-Sex Order - A Bold Call from California"
For many, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's weekend order that city and county officials grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples represented a rash challenge to California law and the state Constitution. Indeed, Newsom's move was a bold one but, in view of the critical need to debate this issue as its legal ramifications break out across the nation, it was also a courageous way of putting our leading-edge state front and center.
The Democratic mayor of San Francisco has been taking it on the chin for forcing the issue of marriage for gay and lesbian couples by issuing his Valentine's Day weekend directive. In truth, though, it was President Bush who thrust this matter into the forefront of our national dialog during his State of the Union address last month when he threatened to call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Newsom was only responding to the shot across the bow by the White House.
-Alameda Times-Star, The Argus (Fremont, Calif.), The Daily Review (Hayward, Calif.), The Oakland Tribune, The Tri-Valley Herald (Pleasanton, Calif.), February 18, 2004, San Mateo County Times, February 19, 2004 (emphasis added)
"Into the Storm"
Despite legal doubts, rain squalls and long waits, gays and lesbians are lining up by the hundreds to share what only San Francisco can offer: equal rights for same-sex couples. [...]
[I]t's plain that the policy rushed out by Mayor Gavin Newsom taps into the heartfelt urge by same-sex couples to claim the same rights and recognition as heterosexuals. Newsom should be commended for taking a high-risk stand for equality, which has turned City Hall into the eye of a political storm. [...]
It should reassure Americans who are uneasy about same-sex marriage to see the joy and love in the eyes of so many applicants. Some of these unions will last a lifetime, others will fail - compatibility and commitment are not determined by sexual orientation. Neither should the concept of equal protection under the law. Old or young, single or with extended families, these couples crave - and deserve - the respect and rights accorded to others in this society.
San Francisco's step forward has reaffirmed the city's image as socially progressive. [...]
Same-sex marriage won't take hold without a fight. A formidable legal challenge awaits in determining if the city's actions violate a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The city's defiance of this rule is based on a sensible alternative: All couples, gay or straight, should enjoy the same rights, including marriage.
-San Francisco Chronicle, February 18, 2004 (emphasis added)
"Marriages in San Francisco"
Americans should pause for a moment to consider the phenomenon that has taken place in San Francisco over the past several days. [...]
If they had anything in common it was the fact that, for the most part, they seemed so very ordinary. These were our brothers and sisters, our aunts and uncles, our sons and daughters. They are in love. And they wanted to get married.
Mayor Newsom and other San Francisco officials gave them a chance to do so. And the phenomenon that followed will have a place in the history books.
Like so many other stands for equal rights, this one may not yield immediate progress.
Presumably, the courts and politicians will try to void the licenses and the marriages. But that hate- and fear-inspired "victory" will be part of the last stand of those who are stuck in the past.
The future has been on display in San Francisco over the past few days. That future is tolerant, respectful and supportive of the rights of all Americans to marry. And it's on the way, faster than even the most optimistic among us could have imagined.
-Capital Times (Madison, Wis.), February 17, 2004 (emphasis added)
"Nothing to Amend; Effort to Kill Gay Marriage a Distraction"
[I]t was a Valentine's Day weekend to remember in San Francisco. The mayor ordered that gays be granted marriage licenses in defiance of state law and hundreds were wed. So the federal amendment that would define marriage as restricted to a man and a woman has picked up support and now has the backing of President Bush.
Demagogues, start your engines.
-Philadelphia Daily News, February 17, 2004 (emphasis added)
"Sacred Vows; Gay Couples Want Their Unions Recognized, Too"
In San Francisco matrimony has never been so popular, and, this being America's most liberal city, never so unconventional. [...]
But as symbolism it has struck a deep chord, dramatically illustrating the hunger of gay couples for official recognition, something that any compassionate society would attempt to accommodate. [...]
The steady stream of gay couples coming to be married in San Francisco neatly illustrates another point: Life goes on. No vows sworn at City Hall make any difference to the marriages of the city's other residents. [...]
San Francisco's approach may seem liberal, but it is just as much libertarian. And out of that union some compromise may yet be forged.
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 17, 2004 (emphasis added)
"Equality Bells are Ringing"
Rather than wait for the gay-marriage battle to find its way to San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom invited it in. Californians, ready or not, were faced last week with the reality of same-sex couples getting married at City Hall.
In a bold act of civil disobedience, Newsom ordered the county clerk to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on Thursday. The conservative Alliance Defense Fund moved quickly to try to block the move.
The marriages are primarily symbolic, since the licenses aren't likely to be recognized by state or federal governments. But the value of Newsom's decision goes beyond the actual ceremonies. It's going to be more difficult for conservatives to convince the public to fear the ''homosexual agenda'' now that they have seen real people with jobs and children and mortgages, couples who have been true to each other for decades, exercising the simple right to enter into a publicly recognized committed relationship, a right straight couples take for granted. [...]
Every civil rights movement needs its Rosa Parks. Thirty years from now, we will likely look back and wonder why it took so long to get here.
-San Jose Mercury News, February 16, 2004 (emphasis added)
"To the Threshold of Equal Rights"
The debate over same-sex marriage moved out of the margins Thursday. [...]
San Francisco finally, officially, cut to the essence of the issue Thursday by issuing marriage licenses at City Hall to same-sex couples. [...]
There was no doubt that the euphoria of this revolutionary action will soon give way to a long, potentially tedious legal battle that may ultimately end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue was forced by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is showing extraordinary mettle in his first weeks of office. Newsom declared that his reading of the California Constitution left "no room for any form of discrimination." [...]
San Francisco's bold move will force the core question, whether Americans - and its elected officials - are ready or not.
. . . We extend our kudos to Mayor Newsom, who recognized that confronting discrimination is not about timing or political calculation, but about principle. [...]
San Francisco should be proud to have provoked this showdown.
-San Francisco Chronicle, February 13, 2004 (emphasis added)
"A Matter of Rights"
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is inviting a court fight in his bold request for the city clerk to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples - in open defiance of state law.
At some point, perhaps soon, the question of same-sex marriage will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The fact that proponents are trying to provoke that showdown - and opponents are working to avert it - is telling.
-San Francisco Chronicle, February 12, 2004 (emphasis added)
