Same-sex couples flock to SF for weekend weddings
The nuptials began Friday after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's historic rulings Wednesday on same-sex marriage, lifted the stay that had stopped them for years.
First up on Saturday were Petra and Antoinette Torri of Sonoma, who rose at 5 a.m. for their big day.
"Why?" Petra asked.
Because we're not married!
Marriages' legal labyrinthSoon, weddings were happening everywhere - on the grand staircase, in the balconies, around the marble rotunda - just as in 2004, when 3,955 same-sex couples became the nation's first to wed.
Same-sex weddings were briefly legal again after a state Supreme Court decision in 2008, and those unions remain valid.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Prop. 8's sponsors, a conservative group, lacked standing to represent the state in defense of the initiative, clearing the way for the same-sex marriages.
Group tries to halt decisionThe Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious group in Arizona, asked the court to overrule what it called a premature decision by the Court of Appeals to lift its stay.
By law, opponents have 25 days to seek a rehearing on the matter, and the group said the appeals court itself had indicated earlier it would not lift the stay until then.
"Shocked, stunned, overwhelmed and relieved" was how Potoczniak, a captain in the Army Reserve, said he felt after John Loschmann, a volunteer officiant, pronounced the couple "spouses for life" on the balcony overlooking the rotunda.
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