- A US gay-marriage revolution spread further as officials
in a key county of the northwestern state of Oregon took San Francisco's
lead and began marrying scores of same-sex couples.
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- Hundreds of gay couples lined up to marry in the city
of Portland after Multnomah County became the fourth local government in
the country to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples since
San Francisco sparked a defiant gay marriage revolt nearly three weeks
ago.
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- The county of 660,000 began issuing the marriage licenses
to a growing crowd after its top legal official ruled Tuesday that refusing
to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was unconstitutional.
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- "The county attorney provided her legal opinion
that it is a violation of the Oregon constitution to discriminate against
individuals who apply for marriage licenses on the basis of their gender
or sexual orientation," said Diane Linn, chairman of the Multnomah
County Board of Commissioners.
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- "What this means is that the county will comply
with the constitution and will issue marriage licenses to couples who request
them," Linn said adding that she had sworn an oath to uphold the state
constitution.
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- And comply it did, opening an explosive new front in
the politically and socially divisive debate over the issue of gay marriage
in the United States.
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- An exuberant crowd of around 400 gays lined up outside
the county court in Portland to tie the knot after County Attorney Agnes
Sowle adopted the same legal argument used by San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newsom to justify his decision to officially sanction gay marriage.
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- To the fury of conservatives, the officials argue that
state laws outlawing same-sex marriage flout the anti-discrimination guarantees
in their state constitutions and therefore can no longer be enforced.
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- But in Multnomah County, only four out of the five county
commissioners took the decision to challenge the law, with one senior official
claiming he was left out in the cold because of his "traditional"
views on marriage.
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- County Commissioner Lonnie Roberts, who says he believes
marriage should be limited to a union between a man and a woman, told AFP
his fellow commissioners had left him "out of the loop" in order
to approve the move.
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- "In my opinion it was somewhat clandestine and the
process they used was not fair," said Roberts who found out about
his government's plan to begin issuing marriage licenses and certificates
along with the general public.
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- He called for an amendment to Oregon's constitution to
bar the practice, following the example of Republican US President George
W. Bush who called last week for a federal constitutional amendment to
ban gay marriages.
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- San Francisco began issuing marriage constitutional to
gay couples on February 12 and has so far married more than 3,000 same-sex
couples after two judges in the city and the California Supreme Court all
refused to grant emergency restraining orders forcing an immediate halt
to the marriages.
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- On February 20, a county in New Mexico followed suit
and began issuing marriage constitutional to gay couples there, marrying
more than 60 same-sex pairs before stopping later the same day after the
state's top legal official said the practice was illegal.
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- But seven days later, the mayor of the small New York
state town of New Paltz also jumped on the bandwagon and began marrying
gay couples there, although he was charged Wednesday with 19 counts of
illegally solemnising marriages.
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- New York state's top legal official meanwhile ruled that
state law does not recognise same-sex marriage, while California's Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that San Francisco's marriages are illegal
and will not be recognised.
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- But despite official and conservative social opposition
to the marriages, the revolt appears to be spreading in the United States,
with gay and civil rights groups insisting it was time for homosexuals
to win equal rights.
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