NEWS San Francisco sues California for right to marry gays February 20, 2004 A truck with anti-gay marriage slogans drives around the San Francisco City Hall 19 February, 2004 Photo: AFP/Hector Mata SAN FRANCISCO — Defiant San Francisco on Thursday sued the state of California, claiming that laws barring the city from marrying gays are invalid and unenforceable. The suit is the latest twist in the explosive saga of the free-wheeling US city's groundbreaking move a week ago to issue marriage licences to gay couples, despite California state laws allowing only a man and a woman to marry. More than 2,800 same-sex couples have been officially wed since Mayor Gavin Newsom launched his hotly-contested campaign of civil disobedience to challenge what he says are unconstitutional and discriminatory statutes. "The rights afforded by California's Constitution clearly trump laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples," San Francisco's top legal officer, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said after filing suit. "San Francisco seeks an unequivocal declaration from the court that state provisions banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional," he said The counter-suit comes after two conservative groups filed their own legal attacks on same-sex marriages, seeking to have them immediately halted and to have unions already officiated to be nullified. While two separate San Francisco judges declined the groups' demands for immediate injunctions, a second hearing in one of the cases was due Friday and could result in a court order halting the gay marriages that are drawing same-sex brides and grooms from across the country to San Francisco. The city's suit contends that three sections of the California Family Code prohibiting marriage between gay couples are void, unconstitutional and unenforceable as they discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender. Herrera said a decision on the constitutionality of banning same-sex marriages is needed to ascertain whether the city was within its rights to issue altered marriage documents that say "spouse and spouse" instead of "bride and groom." – Sapa-AFP Related stories Judge leaves San Francisco gay marriage intact for now [18/02/2004] San Francisco's gay marriages in great demand, couples turned away [16/02/2004]