Scores of gay couples married in San Francisco as the city's mayor slammed US President George W. Bush's call for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

The mayor of the rebellious West Coast city hit back just as California's top legal official prepared to go to the state's supreme court to get a decision on whether a disputed ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

The city began issuing marriage licences to gay couples on February 12 in an open challenge to state laws banning the practice, marrying more than 3,000 same-sex couples in the matrimonial blitz, ignoring furious opposition from Bush, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other top officials.

Mayor Newsom, who contends that the laws are unconstitutional because they are discriminatory, launched a blistering attack on Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

"He's telling 40 plus percent of Americans that they shouldn't have the same rights as my wife and I have," Newsom told reporters. "He should keep his hands off the constitution of the United States of America."

In a statement, the newly-installed mayor said Americans should be "deeply saddened" by Bush's decision to "support enshrining discrimination in our constitution" simply to please the right-wing of his Republican Party ahead of the November 2 presidential election.

"Throughout our history, the constitution has been used to expand freedom and fight discrimination. Today, President Bush has chosen a path that runs counter to our nation's most cherished values of freedom and justice."

Accusing Bush of untruthfulness over what he branded electoral motives in calling for the constitutional change, he warned the move could further divide the country on the sensitive issue.

"It is a sad day when he turns on his own citizens in order to seek re-election," said the mayor. "Yesterday, President Bush began his campaign; today his first step is to try and divide Americans."

Meanwhile, officials at city hall married more than 50 gay couples, even as state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, under enormous pressure to crack down on the wedding spree, said he would take the dispute to California's highest court.

Lockyer said late Monday that the move would force a final decision on whether Newsom's claim that state laws that define marriage as being between a man and a woman unconstitutionally discriminate against gays.

"The Supreme Court has the authority to stop a city's violation of state law, and that immediate action ... is necessary because this is a matter of statewide concern and urgency," Lockyer's office said in a statement.

The official, whose action came after Republican Schwarzenegger instructed him to take immediate legal steps to halt the marriages which he said posed an "imminent risk to civil order," said he would petition the court on Friday.

But Lockyer opposed Bush's plans to amend the country's constitution over the issue as unnecessary.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of gays and lesbians rallied to express their "outrage" over Bush's backing of a constitutional change, with the mayor of the mostly-gay city of West Hollywood.

"I was stunned, outraged, angry and a host of other emotions to hear what the president has done," said the Los Angeles-area city's mayor, Jeff Prang.

"I think he has launched a war, a battle, that is of hatred and divisiveness in an attempt to amend the Constitution for the first time in our history to proactively deny equal protection under the law to a group."

Newsom's rogue but official sanctioning of same-sex marriages has become a socially and politically divisive hot-button issue in the United States, where frequently conservative Christian beliefs permeate both society and politics.

With elections only a few months away, both Republican and Democratic leaders feel they must tread a fine line over the thorny issue, fearing a backlash whether they either support or oppose the practice.

Notoriously free-thinking San Francisco boasts the United States' largest gay community and said it wanted to set an example of tolerance and equality in the country.

But officials in one county in the western state of New Mexico took a lead from San Francisco and married 66 gay couples on Friday before that state's attorney general said the practice was illegal and urged them to stop.

And in West Hollywood, officials have said they are examining the possibilities of sanctioning some sort of gay marriage.

(China Daily February 26, 2004)