Fridae

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who made headlines earlier this year after sanctioning about 4,000 same-sex marriages before the state Supreme Court ordered him to stop, is said to reaping political dividends for championing same-sex marriages.

The latest fundraiser for the Mayor staged by Hollywood heavyweights who reportedly see him as a rising Democratic star will help retire the US$400,000 debt from Newsom's mayoral campaign last year, according to the Associated Press.

Long time gay rights supporter Barbra Streisand and husband James Brolin, television producer Norman Lear, billionaire entertainment mogul Haim Saban, GeoCities founder David Bohnett, and celebrity designer Michael Smith will honour Newsom at a fund-raiser at the home of director Rob Reiner on June 14.

Streisand who has consistently been an outspoken advocate of GLBT causes once said in an interview in a August 17, 1999 issue of the Advocate magazine: "Nobody on this earth has the right to tell anyone that their love for another human being is morally wrong. I will never forget how it made me shudder to hear Pat Buchanan say that he stood 'with George Bush against the immoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women.'

"Who is Pat Buchanan to pronounce anyone's love invalid? How can he deny the profound love felt by one human being for another? ... Unfortunately, however, as long as people like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan continue in public life, the fight to codify gay marriages will be a tough battle to win."

Several hundred invitations to the US$750-a-person reception, a price that is the maximum allowed under San Francisco's campaign finance laws, have been mailed to Hollywood bigwigs and Democratic party supporters.

"Gavin has emerged as a true hero and solidified his role in American history as a champion of equal rights for all," Reiner wrote in a solicitation letter.

Reiner had first contacted Newsom with an offer of help in February, when the mayor directed his administration to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, said Chad Griffin, a political consultant who counts Reiner among his clients and who is co-hosting the fund-raiser.

The June 14 event will not be Newsom's first fund-raiser outside San Francisco. In March, Democratic Party activists and several gay and lesbian groups contributed more than US$10,000 to the mayor's campaign coffer during a luncheon in Washington, D.C.

In February, the mayor defied California's ban on gay marriages when he allowed the city to issue marriage licenses to more than 4,000 gay couples. In a separate action before the high court, the city is defending mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to allow the gay weddings.

A California superior court judge on Wednesday asked that a lawsuit challenging state laws defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman be consolidated with three other lawsuits arising from the politically charged issue of same-sex marriage and tried in San Francisco. Judge Richard Kramer's recommendation to combine the four lawsuits will go to the state judicial council, the court's policy-making body, which will issue the final decision.

According to reports, Newsom has been rumoured for months to be being groomed as a possible successor to either of the state's two Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer or Dianne Feinstein, or as a potential future candidate for governor.