Supreme Court tackles same-sex marriage
A cautious chief justice guides California's high court
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, May 23, 2004

When the California Supreme Court looks at the legality of same-sex marriages in San Francisco on Tuesday, it will be led by its most politically adroit chief justice in decades.

Since being promoted to the top spot in 1996 by Gov. Pete Wilson, who had named him to the court five years earlier, Ronald George has cultivated three governors, the Legislature, the news media and the public while tiptoeing with his colleagues through the minefields of abortion, civil rights, prisoner releases and the gubernatorial recall.

George does not lack courage: He faced down a political challenge over an abortion case soon after taking office and took on a popular district attorney in a serial murder case as a trial judge. He is prodigiously hard-working after 32 years on the bench. He is affable, unpretentious and accessible; reporters who ask the court for information are often surprised to get a call back from the chief justice himself.

He is also quite cautious, by philosophy and disposition, and, for the most part, so is his court.


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Maryland, Virginia reject gay unions in other states
By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Maryland and Virginia will not recognize the "marriages" of area same-sex couples who are joining other homosexuals in flocking to Massachusetts to exchange vows, but D.C. officials are still deciding the issue.

    Both states have laws defining marriage as being only the bonding of a man with a woman.

    The Maryland legislature this year rejected bills that would have banned civil unions. Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. has said the state will not recognize same-sex "marriages" conducted in other states. Mr. Curran, a Democrat, pledged to defend the state against lawsuits by homosexuals seeking recognition of their unions.

    Virginia bans same-sex unions, a policy that will soon face a legal challenge.
    
Civil rights groups and homosexual couples vow to fight to have same-sex "marriages" recognized in this region.

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Opponents of gay marriage rally to keep institution for straights
By BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO -- With the nation's first legal gay nuptials nearly a week old, former presidential candidate Alan Keyes urged hundreds of gay marriage opponents at the state Capitol on Saturday to fight to limit the institution to straight couples only.
The purpose of marriage is to produce children, something homosexuals are physically incapable of, said Keyes, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.

"To say it's between a man and a woman doesn't discriminate against same-sex couples anymore than it would be discrimination for the government to say I can't offer to fly people to the moon without benefit of a rocket ship," Keyes said. "And being as how I'm not physically equipped to fly to the moon, telling me I can't carry passengers there is not discrimination, it's common sense."

While legislation allowing gay marriage is stalled in the Legislature, the rally was timed before the state Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday on whether San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom abused his authority by allowing 4,000 same-sex couples to marry earlier this year.


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Standing up and being counted
More gay teens are coming out, but obstacles still remain
By ANDREA BUSHEE
Telegraph Staff

NASHUA - At age 16, A.J. Rodriguez decided he could no longer be dishonest about who he was.

He believed the only way to be truthful to himself was to come out of the closet both at home and at school.

“I didn’t want to hide myself. I didn’t want to live a lie,” he said.
Rodriguez, 18, came out at Nashua High School in 10th grade by wearing rainbow pins and stickers and a pink triangle pin that symbolizes gay pride. He also started to hold hands with and kiss his boyfriend publicly.

He and other students at Nashua High and other area schools face challenges in coming out. Most teenagers, after all, want to be accepted by their peers, which can be difficult in itself. For students who are also dealing with differences in sexuality, it can be even harder.