California will reject altered marriage forms

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The California state agency that records marriages said yesterday that forms that have been altered, which San Francisco has done on its homosexual "marriage" licenses, will not be registered.

California has a standard application form for marriage licenses, "and if it has been altered in any way, then it will not be registered and recorded. It will be sent back to the county of origin," said Nicole Evans, spokeswoman for Kim Belshe, the California Health and Human Services secretary.

The more than 2,600 homosexual couples who have been "married" since last week with the help of San Francisco city and county officials have been crossing out "groom" and "bride" as printed on the standard application and writing in phrases such as "Applicant #1" and "Applicant #2" or "spouses for life."

None of these forms will be accepted, Ms. Evans said yesterday.

"We have to follow the law when we process these forms. It's part of public statute, so we are following state law in the way we record and register marriages," she said, adding that, to her knowledge, the state agency hasn't received any same-sex "marriage" forms yet.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who orchestrated the same-sex "marriage" spree, could not be reached for comment.

However, San Francisco City Assessor Mabel Teng told the Sacramento Bee that altering the documents to make them gender-neutral had been approved by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and that she didn't think the state could invalidate the documents based on those changes.

A spokesman for Mr. Herrera's office said yesterday that "if and when" marriage forms are returned, "the city attorney will evaluate his options about how to proceed, but at this time, it is premature to speculate on what those options are or what he may be doing."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who generally supports homosexual rights, criticized San Francisco officials for disobeying state law.