The city of San Francisco has asked the California Supreme Court to allow it to resume marrying same-sex couples until the court rules on the constitutionality of state laws banning such unions.

The court ruled last week it will consider a narrower issue: whether the city has the power to defy the state ban.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera argued in court briefs that the justices should put off a decision on the mayor's power and allow the constitutional issue to make its way up through the lower courts to the high court. That could take years.

Meantime, Herrera wants the city to be able to perform same-sex marriages. An attorney for an anti-gay-marriage group, the Alliance Defense Fund, said the city can't be allowed to disregard the law while advancing its social agenda.

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San Francisco's decision to issue marriage licenses to gay couples -- as well as a court decision in Massachusetts and President George W. Bush's call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage -- brought to a head the national debate on the issue in recent months.

Gay Couples Marry In Protest

A rabbi and a pastor married three same-sex couples on the steps of New York's City Hall Thursday to protest last week's arrest of two Unitarian Universalist ministers.

Those ministers were charged in New Paltz, N.Y., with solemnizing marriages without a license. But in Manhattan Thursday, no one was arrested and the district attorney said he wouldn't take any action.

The Rev. Pat Bumgardner of the Metropolitan Community Church saud her church has been solemnizing gay and lesbian weddings for over 30 years. She married two couples -- one male and one female -- and said, "either stop the harrassment or arrest all of us."

Rabbi Ellen Lippman married two women under a Jewish wedding canopy with what she described as "the power vested in me by the state of New York to perform any wedding but this one."

The unions won't be officially recognized because of the state's ban on gay marriages.

The newlyweds said they realize their marriages aren't legal, but they wanted to make a statement.

The mayor of New Paltz has also been charged with criminal counts for marrying same-sex couples.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he hasn't formed a clear opinion on gay marriage. But he says a demonstration in Albany would probably be more effective than a demonstration at City Hall.

Portland Lawsuit

A businessman in Portland, Ore., is suing to stop gay marriages in the city.

Two Oregon counties have decided to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in defiance of state law, including the one that Portland is in.

Businessman Bruce Broussard said he's afraid the decision will bring what he called a negative element to his state. And he said it's eroding family values.

He said the county commissioners who gave the green light to the marriages will likely lose their political futures.

Meantime, the Eugene Register-Guard and Gazette-Times of Corvallis say the state is storing the marriage certificates of gay couples separately until the issue is decided.

The certificates aren't being filed with other marriage licenses in Oregon's vast vital-records database.