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Hello, and welcome to this latest edition of Your Legal Rights - I’m Greg McKinney.

Since 2004, Massachusetts has been the only state in the U.S. that recognizes same sex marriages. Now California does too, at least for now.

When the California Supreme Court ruled in may that excluding same sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional, it set off a wildfire of controversy.

Since the ruling gay couples, some from as far away as New York have been flocking to California to say “I do.”

County clerk offices around the state have been staying open for extended hours to meet the high demand of same sex couples looking to tie the knot.

“We knew that with this additional population wanting marriage licenses it was going to increase our volume significantly, so we’ve started taking appointments and we have appointments spread out now through the end of November actually.”

In San Diego, there were 241 marriage licenses issued at county clerks offices and 144 marriage ceremonies performed on day one.

“That’s huge, that’s a record setting number of licenses in one day.

Those record setting numbers may be just the beginning for eager gay and lesbian couples who are trying to make it official before Election Day.

“What we expect to have happen is most of the same gender couples will try to get in before Election Day in November in the event the ability to do the marriages gets overturned.”

That, opponents say, is a very real possibility. Enough signatures have been gathered to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to define marriage as being between a man and woman. If it passes—it would effectively annul the decision.

Same sex couples who are enjoying wedding bliss today realize because of history there could be serious challenges to the “official” status of their marriages ahead. And that could create an entirely new set of confusing legal issues down the road. We’ll talk about that next.

In 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed nearly 4,000 gay and lesbian weddings.

Those marriages were eventually nullified, but the mayor's act led to a series of court actions and ultimately the state Supreme Court decision that granted marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

“People have asked us what are the IRS implications, is the marriage viewed as valid in other states, what happens with social security, what if they want to change their names and one of the parties takes the other parties last name”

So many questions and apparently for now at least so few answers.

“We don’t know what will happen in November if it gets overturned, I’ve been asked will there be a waiting period, will there be a delay before it’s implemented, is it going to invalidate all of the marriages that took place this summer, we don’t know any of those answers.”

The legal implications of overturning the state’s decision to allow same sex marriages would be far reaching.

According to the general accounting office there’s no less than 1,138 rights and protections granted to U.S. citizens by the federal government the moment a couple gets married. Those rights include everything from hospital visitation to social security and pensions, to family leave issues. Here’s the problem: the federal government doesn’t recognize same sex marriages. That leaves the folks at county clerks offices around California searching for answers.

“What we’ve done is referred them either to an attorney or to those agencies, we refer them back to the IRS, social security, DMV because we don’t actually have the answers to any of those questions.”

Finding the answers to those questions can be tricky because there really is no precedent for cases like this if the amendment does get overturned in November.

We spoke with Brad Sears, the Executive Director of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

He says this is a very different circumstance than the situation in San Francisco in 2004 where the mayor allowed some 4,000 gay couples to be married---only to find out later that those marriages would be nullified.

Back then, he says, the city and the mayor had no authority to issue the marriage licenses----and couples were actually given a sheet of paper at the time saying that their marriages may not stick.

Not so this time. The state supreme court has ruled these marriages are legit.

Williams believes no matter what happens in November, those who are married between now and election day will continue to have their marriages recognized for four reasons.

First, he says, these are “valid” marriages according to the state supreme court.

Secondly, as a general rule, new provisions like this are not retroactive unless the judges say they are. Thirdly, in some cases there will be children involved, mortgages and deeds and other third parties would be affected and could cause massive legal nightmares.

And finally he says the state Supreme Court justices have an institutional interest in keeping their historic decision in place. So while gay couples may not be able to legally wed after the November election, it will be highly unlikely that the very judges who made it legal for these couples to get married---would actually overturn their “own” decision.

That’s one point of view---as you know there are many others.

We’ll continue to follow this highly controversial issue here on LawyerShop TV.

If you’re looking for legal representation about any of the issues discussed on this program, or any other legal matter, be sure do a search in your state on LawyerShop.com.

That’s it for now…thanks for watching this edition of Your Legal Rights.