by Robert Marus

SAN FRANCISCO (ABP) — Sixty years after their predecessors handed down a landmark decision allowing interracial marriages, California Supreme Court justices May 15 did the same for same-sex marriage, overturning a statewide ban on the controversial practice.

The decision paves the way for the Golden State to become the second jurisdiction in the union with fully legalized "gay marriage." However, it likely will have little effect, legally speaking, on same-sex couples in the state, which already offers such couples domestic partnerships with rights and obligations virtually identical to those provided by marriage.

Nonetheless, the court’s majority decided that denying the use of the term "marriage" to such couples violates their rights under the state’s charter.

"The question we must address is whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution," said the court’s majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Ronald George.

The majority referred to the court’s historic 1948 Perez v. Sharp ruling, which similarly said a California ban on interracial marriage violated the state constitution’s equal-protection provisions — even though such a ban had existed since California’s founding. It was the first state high court in the United States to issue a ruling on interracial marriage, and it predated by nearly two decades the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision overturning such anti-miscegenation laws nationwide.

The ruling overturns a 2000 statewide ballot initiative, Proposition 22, that defined marriage exclusively in heterosexual terms; it passed with 61 percent of the vote. But recent polls have suggested opinions are quickly changing in favor of gay marriage in California.

Justice Marvin Baxter, in a dissenting opinion, said the court’s majority was not justified in overruling the proposition.

"Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majority’s startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage — an understanding recently confirmed by an initiative law — is no longer valid," he wrote. "California statutes already recognize same-sex unions and grant them all the substantive legal rights this state can bestow. If there is to be a further sea change in the social and legal understanding of marriage itself, that evolution should occur by similar democratic means."

The case stemmed from 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) and other city officials began performing same-sex "marriages" despite the Proposition 22 ban. Hundreds of couples were wed before the California Supreme Court stepped in to halt the marriages.

The justices found that Newsom had overstepped his authority. They put a halt to the marriages, invalidating those that already had taken place.

Conservative groups in the state have vowed to push harder for an amendment that is likely to appear on the November ballot to reinstitute the marriage ban. Since it would be a constitutional amendment, it would invalidate the court’s ruling.

"It should be a wake-up call for the majority of the people in California," said Chris Clark, pastor of East Clairemont Southern Baptist Church in San Diego and a ProtectMarriage.com volunteer. "Their vote has just been rendered worthless because of what happened today, and the Supreme Court has shown a disregard for the democratic system.

"If there was anybody that thought we were just crying wolf four or five months ago when we were saying we have to get this (amendment) on the ballot ... maybe today they’ll be able to see that this is really going to happen unless we do something."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who vetoed legislative attempts to legalize same-sex marriage twice in as many years, said May 15 he would uphold and enforce the latest decision. He previously said he would oppose the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage permanently.

(Includes information from BP.)