US gays marry

The first gay couples were legally married yesterday and hundreds more waited for their turn to make history as Massachusetts became the only US state to allow same-sex marriage.

Among the first to marry were Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, who have been partners for 18 years.

"Now by the power vested in me by the state of Massachusetts as a justice of the peace, and most of all by the power of your own love, I now pronounce you married under the laws of Massachusetts," Cambridge City Clerk Margaret Drury said shortly after 9 a.m. (1300 GMT). "You may seal this marriage with a kiss." The couple embraced.

The election-year milestone, which is likely to fuel legal and political battles nationwide, made Ms Kadish swoon. "I feel all tingly and wonderful. So much love. Can't you see it is just bursting out of me?"

Cheered by thousands of well-wishers, more than 250 gay couples began applying for marriage licences after midnight in the famously liberal city of Cambridge.

In Boston, florists hauled in buckets of long-stemmed red roses under grey skies and police officers set up barricades as hundreds of gay couples snaked past dozens of photographers and camera trucks to get their licences at City Hall.

All seven couples whose 2001 lawsuit led to last year's court order permitting same-sex marriage planned to wed yesterday.

Conservatives have assailed Massachusetts' top court, which ruled last year that a state ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional and allowed same-sex couples to wed legally.

Gay marriage opponents generally kept a low profile as hundreds prepared to wed, but a handful of anti-gay protesters turned out with signs like "God Hates Fags" and some conservative activists cried foul.

"The documents being issued across Massachusetts may say 'marriage licence' at the top but they are really death certificates for the institution of marriage," said James Dobson, head of Christian group Focus on the Family.

Thousands of same-sex couples were married in San Francisco earlier this year, but the marriages were not recognised by the state of California. A mayor in New York state is being prosecuted after performing gay marriages in February.