San Francisco mayor condemns refusal to marry gays

By Adam Tanner and Mary Milliken

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose fight to allow same-sex weddings won California court approval last week, expressed outrage on Thursday that San Diego County may allow some clerks to decline to wed homosexuals.

A split California Supreme Court ruled a week ago that the state's law barring gays from marrying was unconstitutional and opened the way to such weddings starting in mid-June. The decision came after Newsom forced the issue before the courts by briefly allowing gays to marry in 2004.

On Wednesday, San Diego County Clerk Gregory Smith said he would consider allowing clerks to bow out of processing such marriages if they had moral or religions objections.

"I was pretty shocked about all that, candidly, and pretty outraged," Newsom told Reuters in an interview.

"This is a civil marriage that civil servants have a responsibility to provide, so for civil servants on religious grounds to start passing judgments, they, I think, are breaking the core tenet of what civil service is all about."

"I've got very strong religious beliefs. So now, all of a sudden, I don't have to do certain things, even though that's my responsibility as mayor?"

The latest flap showed that gay marriage remains very contentious in the nation's most populous state even after the legal decision cleared the way to make California only the second U.S. state to allow gays to marry after Massachusetts.

The legal fight could also continue. Late on Thursday, a group opposing gay marriage filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to rehear the case.