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290 River Rd..
Eugene
688-5411
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Eugene
345-2873
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--» www.dailyemerald.com
Nation & World News
San Francisco officials wed
56 gay couples on Thursday
The first gay marriages
to be government-approved
were timed to avoid court
action by protesting groups
By Tracey Kaplan and Thaai Walker
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Racing to beat
a conservative legal challenge, San
Francisco officials married 56 same
sex couples Thursday in a series of ju
bilant ceremonies that marked the
nation's first government-approved
gay marriages.
The first couple to wed were long
time lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon,
79, and Del Martin, 83, who cele
bfate their 51st anniversary together
on Saturday, Valentine's Day. The
founders of the first national lesbian
rights group were critical players in a
carefully timed move by newly elect
ed San Francisco Mayor Gavin New
som, who took advantage of a brief
window of opportunity before the
courts get involved.
The earliest that San Francisco's
controversial decision could be
heard in court is Tuesday because the
courts were closed Thursday for Lin
coln's birthday and will be closed
again Monday for President's Day.
Instead of exchanging vows as hus
band and wife, Lyon and Martin
promised to remain "spouses for life"
in an emotional ceremony that set the
stage for a new legal battle over the di
visive issue of same-sex marriage.
"We've already been together for a
long time. It's time to get some bene
fits out of it," Lyon said outside City
Hall after the ceremony, adding that
other same-sex couples should con
tinue to fight for equal rights and the
legal benefits of marriage. "There are
a lot of enemies out there."
City officials hurried to issue mar
riage licenses before the Campaign
for California Families, a nonprofit
organization that promotes family
values, could make good on a threat
to block them. The group notified
the city by letter Wednesday that it
would seek a court injunction if
Newsom allowed same-sex mar
riages, as he first promised Tuesday.
The same-sex marriages caught op
ponents of gay marriage off-guard,
but they vowed to be in court early
Friday morning to try to stop the city
from issuing the licenses. However,
the city has 24 hours to respond to
the group's request for a restraining
order, making Tuesday the likely
court date.
"Those marriage licenses aren't
worth the paper they're written on,"
said Mat Staver, president and gener
al counsel of the Liberty Counsel, a
Florida-based group representing the
Campaign for California Families.
"He has no more authority to issue
same-sex licenses than he does to se
cede the city from the state or to give
away the state of California to a for
eign nation."
Staver said the marriages are illegal
because only the state has power
over marriage, not cities. He also said
the city is violating Proposition 22,
the four-year-old California initiative
that prevents California from recog
nizing marriages of same-sex couples
performed outside the state.
That proposition clearly defined
marriage as a union between a man
and a woman. But gay rights advo
cates say the law's impact is limited
because it changed only a section of
the state's family code that applies to
recognition of gay marriages in oth
er states, not to California's defini
tion of marriage.
Staver said the group will seek to
impeach Newsom, who was elected
in November.
"We'll pursue every avenue we can
to make this mayor stop," Staver
said. "He's only been in office for
two months, so we think the worst is
yet to come. He needs to learn his
lesson and leave his office."
San Francisco Assessor Mabel
Teng, who presided over many of the
ceremonies, defended the licenses,
which will stand through Valentine's
Day, when gay rights activists plan to
hold a rally in Sacramento. The rally
will celebrate Newsom's action, as
well as a new bill introduced this
week by Assemblyman Mark Leno,
D-San Francisco, that would legalize
gay marriage.
"This is uncharted ground," Teng
said. "I don't know whether other
counties will recognize them, but as
far as we're concerned they are just as
valid as any other marriage."
Newsom took the unprecedented
step of moving forward on the issue
without a state mandate because he
believes discrimination against gay
marriage is prohibited under the
equal protection clause of the Cali
fornia Constitution.
"America has struggled since its in
ception to eradicate discrimination
in all forms," Newsom said Thursday
in a news statement. "Today a barrier
to justice has been removed. A barri
er removed for one person is a barri
er removed for us all."
(c) 2004, San Jose Mercury News
(San Jose, Calif.). Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Gold Beach bridge restoration
uncovers objects from 1930s
Workers found items including
bottle caps, a chisel and
an empty pack of cigarettes
By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune (KRT)
GOLD BEACH — Where the
mountains meet the sea and fog
mingles with ocean spray, Josh Ro
driguez is jackhammering for gold
in the landmark Rogue River Bridge.
The construction worker has per
mission to chisel into the cultural as
set: It's one of several iconic spans
being renovated by Oregon, a bridge
that's labeled a National Historic
Civil Engineering Landmark.
Standing inside a huge enclosure
45 feet above the Rogue River, Ro
driguez chipped away at an arch's
crumbling concrete, embedded with
stones — and maybe a bonanza.
"They call this Gold Beach be
cause there was gold here and they
built this using material from the
area, but I haven't found any gold
yet," said Rodriguez, 25.
The only pay dirt he has found are
bottle caps, a chisel and an empty
pack of smokes, he said.
That's because when a Great De
pression job program turned desti
tute farmers and fishermen into con
struction workers to build the
bridge, they weren't the most metic
ulous craftsmen.
The unskilled laborers, working
quickly, tossed their debris into the
wooden forms that held freshly
poured cement. The bottom of the
forms collected the most junk; the
frames, made of timber milled up
river, made for better receptacles
than the Rogue.
The junk embedded in 230-foot
long majestic arches and slender
colonnades — an airy architecture
providing portals to forested moun
tains and the Pacific — has been a
rascal to the restoration. It has
forced the renovation to exceed its
$ 18.5 million budget, to a cost yet to
be determined, officials said.
Oregon engineers plan to spend
three decades restoring‘this and 10
other bridges along famed coastal
U.S. Highway 101. Oregon's master
bridge builder Conde McCullough
designed the 11 spans, and in his
lifetime built scores of bridges here
and in Central America. The last re
furbishment is scheduled to be fin
ished in 2022, at a total cost of
$200 million.
The American Society of Civil En
gineers took special note of the
Rogue River Bridge, citing its use of
an innovative construction tech
nique and calling it "the most ad
vanced concrete bridge in America
when it was built."
The method required less con
crete, though the use of hydraulic
jacks to build arch crowns discour
aged other builders and later McCul
lough, who never built another like
it, state officials said. Oregon is seek
ing to place the Rogue River Bridge
and other coastal masterpieces by
McCullough on the National Regis
ter of Historic Places.
(c) 2004, Chicago Tribune.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
information Services.
Oregon Daily Emerald
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene OR 97403
The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub
lished daily Monday through Friday
during the school year by the Oregon
Daily Emerald Publishing Co. Inc., at
the University of Oregon, Eugene,
Oregon.The Emerald operates inde
pendently of the University with of
fices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial
Union. The Emerald is private prop
. . erty. The unlawful removal or use of
' papers is prosdcdtabld by law. *
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