Behind the scenes of San Francisco’s historic defiance of marriage law, the city’s attorneys are battling to ensure an avowed homosexual judge presides over a crucial court hearing next month.
Two judges refused the requests by traditional-family defenders to stop San Francisco’s issuance of marriage licenses, which now has surpassed 3,000.
The two cases were consolidated Friday, and under the rules of consolidation, Judge Ronald Quidachay would preside over the March 29 hearing because his case was filed first.
But the city is pressing for San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren, the grandson of famed U.S. Supreme Court Judge Earl Warren and a homosexual who was “outed” by San Francisco Magazine in June 2002.
Although they won’t divulge their reasons, the opponents of same-sex marriage are adamant about not arguing their case before Warren.
Lawyers representing the Campaign for California Families, or CCF, which filed the lead suit, submitted a motion yesterday to remove Warren because their clients’ cause of action would be prejudiced.
“We are not going into further detail, and we are following a declaration by our client that confirms we have good faith,” Mathew Staver, president and general counsel for Liberty Counsel, told WorldNetDaily.
Despite the fact California’s law of consolidation would give the case to Quidachay, the city is trying “strategically” to move it to Warren, Staver said. San Francisco attorneys filed another action in Warren’s court naming CCF as a defendant, arguing all the related legal matters should be transferred to Warren.
But Staver believes the rules of consolidation and his group’s “preemptory strike” filed yesterday make the chances of Warren hearing the case “slim to none.”
He said his client does not have to explain why it thinks Warren would prejudice its cause of action.
The city attorney’s office did not respond to WND’s request for comment.
On the front page of its website, the city attorney’s office has a graphic of two women holding hands behind a banner that says “S.F. Leads the Fight for Marriage Equality.”
‘Not swayed’
In a short feature in the Oakland Tribune last week, lawyers who know Warren dismissed any notion his homosexuality plays much of a role in his judicial analyses.
Warren’s ruling in a high-profile dog mauling case last year involving a lesbian victim, Diane Whipple, was “especially galling” to the homosexual community, the paper said. The judge shocked the San Francisco courtroom by tossing out the jury’s verdict finding Marjorie Knoller guilty of second-degree murder.
That case indicates Warren is “not going to be swayed by public opinion,” Knoller’s appellate attorney Dylan Schaeffer told the Tribune.
Nanci Clarence, a criminal defense attorney, said she expects Warren takes the same-sex marriage case “very, very seriously.”
“I don’t think this will be the first time that he, as all judges must, has to sort through what his personal feelings are to come to a ruling,” she told the Oakland paper.
The Tribune story linked Warren with his grandfather, the architect of the U.S. Supreme Courts’ civil rights rulings in the 1960s, stating he faces “the most pressing civil-rights issue of the day – whether the law allows same-sex marriages.”
Law violated but licenses continue
 Same-sex couples line up outside San Francisco City Hall Monday. (Photo: San Jose Mercury News) |
Last Tuesday, Warren told the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund its argument that San Francisco’s same-sex marriage license are illegal likely would succeed but rejected the group’s petition for an immediate stay.
Warren eventually issued a non-binding cease and desist order which said if the city did not comply it must return for a March 29 hearing to show cause for non-compliance, said the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the Prop 22 group.
In the other case, Judge Quidachay issued a similar ruling Friday and consolidated the two cases.
Campaign for California Families said Quidichay’s ruling was a victory of sorts because the judge said while the licenses would continue to be issued, recognized state law on marriage is being violated, which was the basis for his order to show cause.
In March, the city will have the burden of proof to show why its actions are not illegal.
Significantly, the group emphasized, Quidachay denied San Francisco’s request to throw out the case in light of the city’s counter-suit filed Thursday against CCF and Liberty Counsel, which claimed the “equal protection clause” requires homosexual “marriage.”
Friday evening, Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state Attorney General Bill Lockyer “to take immediate steps” to have a court declare the city’s actions illegal. Lockyer rebuffed that demand, however, calling the directive political rhetoric.
“The governor can direct the Highway Patrol. He can direct the next ‘Terminator 4’ movie if he chooses. But he can’t direct the attorney general in the way he’s attempted to do,” Lockyer said Saturday, according to the AP.
He called Schwarzenegger’s written directive “a statement designed for consumption at the Republican convention,” which the governor addressed Friday night.
However, yesterday Lockyer, a Democrat, said he plans to ask the state Supreme Court on Friday whether San Francisco’s approval of same-sex marriages violates state law.
The attorney general said statewide concern about the issue made the query necessary.
“The people of California who have enacted laws that recognize marriage only between a man and a woman, and the same-sex couples who were provided marriage licenses in San Francisco deserve a speedy resolution to the question of the legality of these licenses,” Lockyer said.
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