San Francisco asked justices to resume gay marriages
SAN FRANCISCO – City officials here asked the California Supreme Court on Thursday to allow the resumption of gay marriages. The request by City Attorney Dennis Herrera came a week after the seven high court justices stopped the marriages until the court decides whether Mayor Gavin Newsom and his administration had the power to defy state law and issue same-sex marriage licenses to more than 4,000 gay couples since Feb. 12.


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Reports of anti-gay violence increasePatrick Letellier, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Thursday, March 18, 2004 / 04:56 PM
Incidents of anti-gay hate violence rose 24 percent in the last six months of 2003, following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strike down sodomy laws, according to data released this week by a national anti-violence project.

The data is "clear evidence of the backlash" against GLBT people as a result of heightened media attention following the Supreme Court decision and the controversy over same-sex marriage, according to a press release by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP), which tracks anti-gay hate violence.

In some areas, the number of attacks rose even more dramatically, when compared with data from a year earlier. Incidents increased by 133 percent in Colorado, 120 percent in Chicago and 43 percent in New York. In San Francisco, which became ground zero in the struggle over same-sex marriage rights in February, incidents in the last half of 2003 rose 14 percent.