Lambda Legal Advises Newly Married Same-Sex Couples And San Francisco Officials To Ignore Right-Wing Groups' Scare Tactic Claims that Marrying Is a Crime

(San Francisco, Thursday, February 19, 2004) - Lambda Legal today advised newly married same-sex couples and government officials issuing marriage licenses in San Francisco that antigay groups’ public statements threatening criminal action against them are groundless and should be ignored.

In recent days, antigay groups that are challenging the marriages in state court have said criminal legal action should be taken against the officials and the couples. Lambda Legal has analyzed all of the state laws that could be seen as relevant and found that the couples and government officials have not violated criminal laws.

“These kinds of wild assertions have no place in a serious discussion about families and seem designed only to frighten couples and city workers,” said Jon Davidson, Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal in its Western Regional Office in Los Angeles. “We’ve become increasingly concerned over the last couple of days that this rhetoric from antigay groups is intended to scare couples on their wedding days and intimidate city workers who are simply doing their jobs. We want couples and city workers to understand that these claims are groundless and should be ignored.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed city workers to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples last Thursday, and more then 2,800 couples have already married. A Florida-based antigay group and an Arizona-based antigay group both filed lawsuits to stop the city from issuing licenses and to invalidate the existing marriages. Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the ACLU of Northern California entered into the cases on behalf of several same-sex couples who were married in the past week, a San Francisco couple who wants to marry and Equality California (a statewide lesbian and gay advocacy group) on behalf of its members. Two separate judges have refused to issue injunctions to immediately stop the city from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and yesterday a state appeals court rejected an immediate appeal in one of those cases. Based on specific statements from antigay groups about criminal claims involving the couples and the city workers, as well as an analysis of a range of state laws, Lambda Legal determined that four laws may be at issue -- and none of them pose a credible threat to couples or city workers. They include:

State law against contracting or solemnizing incestuous or forbidden marriages, which was specifically cited by antigay groups and outlines criminal penalties for officials authorized to solemnize marriages. This law does not refer to marriages between people of the same sex. Marriages that are specifically declared “void” in the relevant law include bigamous and incestuous marriages, but not marriages between same-sex couples. (California’s statute against recognizing marriages between same-sex couples, which applies only to out-of-state marriages and has not been ruled constitutional, is not part of the Health and Safety Code that governs registrars and people authorized to solemnize marriages.)

State law against failing to furnish information or furnishing false information, which includes providing information for certificates and records or possessing documents that have false information. Since the marriages in San Francisco don’t involve false information (such as incorrect identification, etc.) from couples or city workers, this law doesn’t apply. (In addition, this law, by its terms, doesn’t apply to the marrying couples themselves.)

State law against altering or falsifying records, which also includes language against someone who “knowingly possesses more than one altered document.” No records were substantively altered in order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Even so, the married same-sex couples possess one marriage certificate each (not the “more than one” document specified by this law), so this law also has nothing to do with them.

State law against local registrars neglecting their duty, which involves any local official who “fails, neglects or refuses to perform” his or her duty as required by law. As mentioned above, relevant laws do not explicitly address the validity of same-sex marriages, so officials have not violated a law by failing to issue licenses to opposite-sex couples only. In addition, since they began issuing licenses to same-sex couples, officials have continued to perform their duties by issuing marriage licenses to different-sex couples.

“We realize that the law on these issues may seem complicated, but the bottom line is that same-sex couples and city workers should not be intimidated by these scare tactics,” Davidson said. “Along with NCLR and the ACLU, we are committed to protecting these marriages and defending them against any kind of attack.”

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Contact: Fred Shank, 212/809-8585 ext. 267; 917/691-5412 (cell)