Agence France Presse

San Francisco, March 12:

California’s Supreme Court has ordered the US city of San Francisco to immediately stop marrying gay couples, four weeks after its same-sex marriage blitz first sparked a divisive national row.

The order, which US conservatives who violently oppose gay marriage claimed as a major victory, came yesterday as lawmakers in Massachusetts took the first step towards approving a constitutional amendment that would ban the practice.

In the first of several votes needed, legislators in the eastern state voted by 129 to 69 to pass the amendment that would ban same-sex marriage but permit civil unions.

That move came after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in November that an existing ban on gay marriage violated the state constitution. The state would, on May 17, become the first US state to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples, unless the amendment takes effect first.

The California Supreme Court order came after a month of legal wrangling over San Francisco’s defiant insistence on marrying gay couples to protest state laws that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.