Not giving up: activists vow that roadblocks to marriage equality in San Francisco and Massachusetts will be only temporary.

It's not over yet. The California supreme court on March 11 ordered a halt to the issuance of marriage licenses for same-sex couples in San Francisco, and the same day the Massachusetts legislature gave preliminary approval to a proposal that would amend the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But marriage rights advocates vow to reverse both decisions.

"While we're disappointed that the profound images of couples getting married win no longer be a part of the San Francisco experience, it is inevitable that the California supreme court will find that excluding lesbian and gay couples from the right to marry is a violation of the [state] constitution," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the national center for Lesbian Rights.

The California high court will rule on San Francisco's authority to issue the licenses, possibly in late May or early June. But Kendell said the court may not address Mayor Gavin Newsom's still-defiant claim that marriage discrimination violates the state's constitution. Hoping to force a showdown, NCLR, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the American Civil Liberties union filed a Lawsuit on March 12 challenging the constitutionality of the state's ban on same-sex marriage. And the case could move through the courts quickly, said Jenny Pizer, senior staff attorney for Lambda, because the same-sex marriage issue is already in play.

Meanwhile, she said, the slightly more than 4,000 marriage licenses issued in San Francisco will probably not be invalidated. Based on existing case law, "it is quite extraordinary to undo a marriage," Pizer said. "There's strong reason to believe those licenses are valid, whether or not the mayor had the authority to issue them."

In Massachusetts the legislature's marriage-ban proposal, which needs to be confirmed in a final vote March 29, would allow for civil unions. But it would take at least two years to implement and would not affect the state supreme judicial court's ruling that same-sex marriages must be legal May 17. Gov. Mitt Romney, who has vowed to block the marriages, may go before the state high court and argue that it is in the public interest to hold off on issuing marriage licenses until the people can vote on the amendment proposal in 2006, said Mary Bonauto, an attorney with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. "But I would say they have an uphill battle with that argument."