By Jim Christie
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California Supreme Courtoverturned a ban on same-sex marriages on Thursday in a majorvictory for gay rights advocates that will allow homosexualcouples to marry in the most populous U.S. state.
The court found that California laws limiting marriage toheterosexual couples are at odds with rights guaranteed by thestate's constitution. Opponents of gay marriage vowed tocontest the ruling with a statewide ballot measure.
Massachusetts is now the only U.S. state to allow gaymarriage. Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermontpermit same-sex civil unions that grant largely the same staterights as married couples but lack the full, federal legalprotections of marriage.
The California court's 4-3 decision overturns state lawsprohibiting same-sex nuptials.
The state's constitution "guarantees same-sex couples thesame substantive constitutional rights as opposite-sex couplesto choose one's life partner and enter with that person into acommitted, officially recognized, and protected familyrelationship," the court said.
Bruce Ivie, 51, and partner David Bowers, 61, were thefirst people at the court clerk's office to obtain a copy ofthe decision.
"Sweet," Ivie said on finding the decision's bottom line onthe state's ban on gay marriage. "The second paragraph says itall to me: It's unconstitutional."
Gay rights advocates predicted California's ruling wouldhave a ripple effect across the nation.
"The California decision will have a particular impact onNew Jersey, where we are closer than ever to becoming the firststate in American history to enact marriage equality throughlegislation," said Steven Goldstein, the chairman of GardenState Equality, the largest New Jersey gay rights organization.
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Californians in 2000 voted to reaffirm a 1977 state lawdefining marriage as union of a man and woman. But four yearslater, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom challenged that law byissuing marriage licenses to gay couples, which led to thecourt battle decided on Thursday by the state Supreme Court.
Newsom said his controversial policy had been vindicatedand that he plans to resume issuing marriage licenses forsame-sex couples in coming weeks.
"It's an exhilarating feeling. That's the best I candescribe it," Newsom said. "At the end of the day, this isabout real people and their lives and their families, and itdoesn't get much more personal than that."
A dissenting opinion by Judge Marvin Baxter and joined byJudge Ming Chin said a narrow majority of the court had carveda constitutional right out of existing equal-protection laws,overstepping legislative powers in what amounted to "legaljujitsu." A third justice dissented on different grounds.
"It simply does not have the right to erase, then recast,the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societieshave understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporarynotions of equality and justice," Baxter wrote.
But the Judicial Council of California, the state courts'administrative office, said the ruling is final in 30 days andmunicipalities around the state must prepare to issue marriagelicenses to gay and lesbian couples.
"The decision directs state officials who supervise theenforcement of the state's marriage laws to ensure that localofficials comply with the court's ruling and permit same-sexcouples to marry," the statement said.
Opponents of gay marriage said they aim to ask votersperhaps as soon as in the November election to endorse aconstitutional amendment on the state ballot that wouldsupersede the court's ruling by defining marriage exclusivelyas between a man and woman.
"These out-of-touch California judges will not have thelast word on marriage," said Brian Brown, head of the NationalOrganization for Marriage California. "California voters will."
(Additional reporting by Amanda Beck and Eric Auchard inSan Francisco and Mark Egan in New York; Editing by MaryMilliken and Eric Walsh)
