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Associated Press photo by Matt Sayles
Nella foto il piccolo Declan Fitzgerald-Yu, tre anni, osserva i suoi "genitori" Danny Yu e Patrick Fitzgerald mentre si uniscono in matrimonio nella Sala principale del Municipio di San Francisco in California.
Che colpa ha questo bimbo?!
Una foto emblematica per capire la radicale opposizione verso il sistema di vita americano che ci anima.
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(02-14) 107 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --
Couples from out of state are answering this city's Valentine's Day invitation to wed in an unprecedented spree of same-sex marriages that has challenged California law and sent conservative groups scrambling for court intervention.
About 300 people lined up Saturday morning outside City Hall to secure marriage licenses -- and then take each other as "spouse for life" in brief vows that have given San Francisco's seat of government the feel of a Las Vegas wedding chapel.
It was the third-straight day that officials issued the licenses to hundreds of gay and lesbian couples. The response has been so overwhelming that nearly 200 city officials, led by newly elected Mayor Gavin Newsom, have volunteered to pitch in, from sheriff's deputies providing security to clerks processing the licenses.
Those volunteers were out Saturday morning, handing out forms and pens to couples and answering their many questions.
Despite legal challenges from advocates of traditional marriage, the wedding march that began Thursday morning is expected to continue throughout the long holiday weekend.
On Friday, a judge denied a petition to block more licenses from being granted, and city officials said they would welcome accept license applications on Saturday, Sunday and Monday -- President's Day -- to accommodate couples that have flocked here from as far away as Portland, Ore. and even New York.
By late Friday, city authorities had officiated at 665 same-sex weddings in City Hall, and issued still more licenses.
Rodney Vonjaeger and his partner John Kussmann, both 37, drove overnight from San Diego and arrived at 3 a.m. Saturday.
"We decided if there was ever an opportunity we would do it, so the drive wasn't even a consideration," Vonjaeger said as he waited in line Saturday. They set the hotel alarm for 8 a.m., "but we were up at 7 because of the excitement."
On Friday afternoon, the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund asked a Superior Court judge to prevent San Francisco officials from issuing any more licenses and to invalidate the ones that had already been recorded. The organization represents a California group seeking to uphold Proposition 22, a ballot initiative approved by voters in 2000 that held the state would only recognize marriages between a man and a woman.
"Municipal anarchy is unacceptable," lawyer Robert Tyler said in arguing for the emergency stay request.
But Therese Stewart, a city attorney, countered that the petitioners had not met their legal burden of showing that the city's actions were causing "irreparable harm" to justify an emergency stay.
"What is the parade of horrors, if you will, that will visit the city and others if they are not enjoined?" Stewart asked.
In the end, the judge told the Alliance Defense Fund lawyers they hadn't given the city enough of the petition to properly make their request. Judge James L. Warren told both sides to return Tuesday.
A second group, Campaign for California Families, also filed a legal challenge and has secured a separate Tuesday hearing.
"No one made the mayor of San Francisco king; he can't play God," said Randy Thomasson, the group's director.
Mayor Newsom insisted that the weddings were both legally and morally proper.
"We are confident we are doing the right thing," said Mayor Newsom, who personally officiated the weddings of his chief of staff and his policy director to their longtime partners.
But the newly married couples may face another obstacle besides the pair of pending lawsuits. After a marriage license is recorded by county officials, it is sent on for filing with the state Office of Vital Records, a division of the Health and Human Services Agency.
Terri Delgadillo, the agency's deputy secretary, said that officials review each license to make sure the state-issued form has not been altered. If it has, the form is sent back the county where it originated, Delgadillo said, noting that the forms currently require certification that a man and woman are bride and groom.
San Francisco officials have insisted the licenses they have handed out are legally binding, even though they are revised to be "gender-neutral." But Stewart, the deputy city attorney, acknowledged that the state may not accept them. In the meantime, it will remain unclear what legal weight the marriage licenses will carry, Stewart said.
The newly revised marriage applications, which refer to "Applicant 1" and "Applicant 2" instead of "bride" and "groom," carry disclaimers encouraging "same-gender couples" to "seek legal advice regarding the effect of entering into marriage."
"Marriage of lesbian and gay couples may not be recognized as valid by any jurisdiction other than San Francisco, and may not be recognized as valid by any employer," the disclaimer said.
San Francisco appears to be the first city in the nation to officially support same-sex marriage licenses; city clerks in Arizona and Colorado in 1975 issued licenses to gay and lesbian couples that were later revoked or declared void.




7 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --
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