New European astronaut reveals greatest fear

LONDON, England (CNN) -- He's a helicopter test pilot who spent 18 years in the British Army. He just beat more than 8,400 others to become one of Europe's newest astronauts, destined for the International Space Station.

Helicopter test pilot Tim Peake is about to venture a lot further as one of six new astronauts at the European Space Agency.

So what is Tim Peake most nervous about?
Learning Russian.
"That's an area that I think will probably be quite difficult for me," said Peake, 37, in an interview Friday with CNN.
It certainly speaks volumes about Peake's experience that he considers learning a language the hardest part of his new job.
His career in the British Army's Army Air Corps involved flying and teaching on helicopters in Germany, the United States, and Britain before becoming an experimental test pilot. He left the service this year having achieved the rank of major, though he is still a reservist.
Peake now works as a test pilot for helicopter designer and manufacturer AgustaWestmoreland, primarily doing flight testing on Apache and Lynx helicopters.
"We really get involved in an aircraft program from the drawing board right through to the first flight," Peake said. "You hope everything will go right, everything's been designed right ... but until you lift the aircraft off the ground, you're never quite sure what's going to happen."
This month, the European Space Agency chose Peake and five other Europeans to be its newest generation of space explorers. They will begin training later this year with the goal of completing future missions to the International Space Station (ISS).
The six were chosen from among 8,413 applicants and include another test pilot, one fighter pilot, a commercial pilot, and an engineer and a physicist. They come from Italy, Germany, Denmark, and France.
The selection process took a year and involved medical, psychological, and professional screening.
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Peake said there were tests on memory retention, math and engineering, coordination, and spacial awareness.
"They were the kind of tests where in some circumstances, if you were a perfectionist, you would have found it very frustrating because with a lot of them you couldn't complete them 100 percent," he said.
The applicants were tested on problem-solving and team-building before having an hour-long interview in front of a five-member panel.
After that came a week-long intensive medical exam that covered everything from ear, nose, throat and eyes to bone density.
"It was a very good mid-life review," Peake joked. And while he wasn't told the results of his medical test, "they did tell us that everything was fine."
Peake said he didn't think he'd gotten the job. The ESA was due to announce the winning applicants on May 20, but as the day approached, Peake said his phone went quiet.
"I hadn't heard anything for nearly four weeks, since my final interview, so as the time got closer to the final press conference ... I naturally assumed, well, it's not me," he said.
Then his phone rang. He saw the Paris number and figured it was a rejection. In fact, it was the ESA calling to tell him he'd been selected in what Peake says was "the biggest life-changing telephone call I've ever had in my life."
"It was just the most amazing feeling in the world," he said. "I was absolutely delighted. It's an incredibly privileged position to have."
Now that the media frenzy has subsided, Peake said, it's back to work. He still has his job at AgustaWestmoreland and must also find a place for his family to live in Cologne, Germany, for when training begins there in September.
Peake is married to Rebecca and they have a four-and-a-half-month-old son, Thomas.
The 18-month training is mostly technical but also involves Russian language courses so the astronauts can become fluent. Russian and English are the two official languages on the ISS.
At the end of the training, the six will be qualified astronauts, eligible for mission assignment. And once assigned to a mission, they will undergo two to three years of mission-specific training as a crew.
Peake said he's hoping to go on multiple missions to the ISS. Some may be the standard six-month missions while others may be shorter resupply stints, he said.
He's never been in space before and says he doesn't really know what to expect.
"I would imagine if it's anything like previous test flying I've done, when you get so embroiled into the training for a mission, it's almost as if you just let the training take over," he said. "However, I'm sure there will be a few moments when you might be able to take pause."
A veteran astronaut advised Peake not to forget to "look down and enjoy the view," he said.
"I think it will be one of the most beautiful sights that you could imagine," he said.

Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology

The collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology from editing the site. The Register reports Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, or ArbCom, voted 10 to 0 in favor of the ban, which takes effect immediately.
Wikipedia’s innovative free-encyclopedia draws upon the knowledge of millions of users to create and edit articles on every conceivable topic. Edits appear immediately and do not undergo any formal peer-review process.
Wikipedia officially prohibits use of the encyclopedia to advance personal agendas – such as advocacy or propaganda and philosophical, ideological or religious dispute – but the open format makes enforcing such policies difficult.
According to Wikipedia administrators speaking to The Register:
Multiple editors have been “openly editing [Scientology-related articles] from Church of Scientology equipment and apparently coordinating their activities.”
However, Karin Pouw, with the Church of Scientology’s public affairs office, told me she is unaware of any coordinated effort to alter Wikipedia. Instead, she described the edits as individual attempts to correct inaccurate information by impassioned Scientologists and interpreted the ban as a typical Wikipedia response to arguments over content. She noted that even the U.S. Department of Justice received a temporary ban after someone erased references to a controversial scandal from inside the government agency.
One Wikipedia contributor I spoke with that was involved in the Scientology arbitration agreed that some of the edits coming from the church were justifiable, but insisted the ban was necessary after the church refused to follow Wikipedia’s policies:
“The edits coming out of Church of Scientology servers were of the sort that made their organization look better. Up to a point that’s justifiable, when it comes to correcting inaccuracies or removing poorly sourced negative information. There were times when they went beyond that and deleted well sourced information that was unflattering, and there were times when they insulted other editors in a manner that would reflect poorly upon any religion.”
Some see Wikipedia’s decision as a setback to the Utopian goal of Web 2.0 in which every user is allowed to freely contribute.
How do you feel about the ban? Should Wikipedia actively suppress self-serving, misleading or inaccurate information? Or does every voice deserve to be heard?

Three men hanged in Iran for mosque bombing

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Three men who were involved in the recent bombing of a mosque in the city of Zahedan were hanged Saturday, only two days after the explosion that killed and injured dozens of worshippers, according to Iran's judiciary.
A judiciary spokesman in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan told the state-run news agency IRNA that Haji Noti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shai Zehi and Zabihollah Naroubi had smuggled into the country the explosives used in Thursday's bombing in the Shia mosque of Amir al-Momenin.
Before the executions, Hojatoleslam Ebrahim Hamidi said: "These three traitors, who smuggled in the explosives and put them at the disposal of a terrorist played a major role in the murders," IRNA said.
The three were hanged in public just before the funerals of the people killed in the mosque Thursday.
"The three were charged with waging war (against God), corruption on earth and activities against the state. They were convicted and they had confessed to their crimes, and their role in smuggling explosives into the country had been proven," Hamidi told IRNA.
Reports on the number of casualties varied in Iranian reports. Some local agencies said more than 20 people were killed and 125 were wounded in the bombing.
He said the three had been arrested a few days before the actual bombing and their role in bringing in the explosives had been proven. The judiciary spokesman in Zahedan added: "Immediately after the mosque explosion, the cases of the three men were referred to a team from the judiciary who spent thirty hours investigating it. The three men were convicted of the charges after the due process of the law, including a state-appointed lawyer to defend them, was observed and the defendants were found guilty of all charges."
The spokesman added that the three men had been accused of several other crimes, including direct participation in a bus bombing three years ago in Zahedan and at least two other bombings, IRNA said.
Hamidi said that the three men had also been involved in four hostage taking incidents, had planned eight other hostage taking and terrorist operations that had been discovered by the police before they could be carried out.
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"This file is not closed yet. They (men) were only a part of this plot, more culprits will be identified and punished in the near future," the judiciary spokesman said.
Hamidi said: "The enemy is now trying to sow dissension among the various tribes and sects and are trying to flame the fires through terrorist acts. While the country is preparing for the 10th presidential elections, the hand of world's arrogant powers is coming out through the sleeves of a bunch of traitors who ignore even the sanctity of mosques."
IRNA said Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, condemned the bombing and sent a message of sympathy to the victims' relatives.
"In his statement, he condemned the involvement of certain expansionist superpowers and their spying organizations in the plots against Muslim nations and between the followers of Islam's different sects and causing bloodshed among Muslim brothers in Iran and other regional countries," IRNA reported.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hard-line cleric, also said there were signs that the United States and Israel were involved in the mosque bombing, IRNA reported.
The United States denied the allegations.
"The U.S. strongly condemns all forms of terrorism. We do not sponsor any form of terrorism in Iran. And we continue to work with the international community to try to prevent any attacks against innocent civilians anywhere," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in a Friday briefing.

King: Same-sex marriage debate heats up in New York

Editor's note: On CNN's "State of the Union," host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on the issues affecting communities across the country.

Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, and her partner Kim Catullo talk to John King.

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- As she lobbies members of the New York Senate these days, the politician in Christine Quinn can understand what the gay rights activist in her sometimes cannot.
"The fear of the unknown," is how she describes it. "This is a vote they've never cast before. And they don't know how people are going to react. You are in a position where people's reaction to you is the key to your success. And the unknown creates fear and fear often creates paralysis."
Quinn is the openly gay speaker of the New York City Council, and a proponent of legalizing same sex marriage in New York state.
"It is really encouraging to see what's happening around the country in places where you really wouldn't expect it, like Iowa," says Quinn's longtime partner, Kim Catullo. "To be in a place like New York and not have it just doesn't seem to make sense."
The New York Assembly passed legislation allowing same-sex marriages earlier this month, and the question now is whether there are enough votes in the state Senate to pass the legislation before the legislature adjourns for the year.
Quinn, who spent time in Albany this past week meeting with undecided senators, is cautiously optimistic.
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"It was amazing how much openness there was," she said of private meetings with lawmakers who are undecided and even a few who have said they are likely to oppose the legislation. "We just all have to create a moment for them to step forward. So I really think it is going to happen this month, before the legislative session is over."
Maggie Gallagher sees the Senate math quite differently.
"We are now working in 24 Senate districts," says Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriages. "We know we have generated thousands of phone calls to legislators. I don't think they will be passing a gay marriage bill this session."
The New York legislation is part of a growing national debate, and one which will gain even more attention because of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy and the nomination of federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill it.
"Not tomorrow. Not likely in the coming year unless the courts move dramatically faster than we are used to seeing them move," is how Columbia Law School Professor Suzanne Goldberg answers when asked when the issue of same-sex marriage is likely to make the Supreme Court docket. "But certainly some time in the next couple of years we're likely to see the Supreme Court issue a position or two on this issue."
Goldberg knows Sotomayer well; the judge is also a lecturer at Columbia.
"We've never spoken about the issue," Goldberg told us. "I have no inside information about her views. What I would say is that she is both a wise person and a thoughtful person and being wise and thoughtful are the right ingredients for reaching what to me is the right answer on this issue, which to me is that equality applies to all people."
The likelihood of the issue reaching the Supreme Court in the next year or two raises the stakes in the state battles.
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Opponents of California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage vow to try again in 2010 in hopes of a different result. A new federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 was filed this week and could well be among the cases that make it to the Supreme Court eventually.
Five states now allow same-sex marriage: Maine, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the states with active debates include California, New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire.
In an interview in their apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, Quinn and Catullo agreed the ideal solution for them would be federal recognition of the right of same-sex couples to marry.
But the federal Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Clinton defines marriage as between a man and a woman. And President Obama says he supports civil unions and other benefits for same-sex couples but opposes marriage.
"He's not perfect on this issue and I want him to be perfect," Quinn said of Obama. "And I'm fairly certain that pretty soon he will be perfect on this issue and what we just have to do is keep talking to him and keep educating him and keep working on him."
"It doesn't help," Catullo says of Obama's opposition. Still, like Quinn, she hopes eventually, "he can evolve."
Gallagher, of the National Organization for Marriage, is worried more about the high court than any pressure on Obama from gay rights activists.
"Well I don't believe David Souter was on our side on the gay marriage issue although we don't know for sure," Gallagher said. So in her line of speculating, swapping Sotomayor for Souter isn't likely to swing the court in any major way. Her major worry is if one of the more conservative judges decided to retire in the near future.
"I don't think this one is going to tip the balance," Gallagher said. "But we're very close. We're probably only one Supreme Court justice away from a nationally imposed right to same-sex marriage whether we like it or not. That is the ultimate game plan of the gay marriage forces."
Catullo would prefer a conversation less political.
"I really do believe that if someone lived next to us or really knew us, it wouldn't be an issue at all," she said. "I mean we are good people. We're law-abiding. We're taxpayers. We're just an eight-year couple that's been together a long time and we do a lot of the things that a normal couple does. There's a lot more things in the world to worry about than the fact that we want to be married."

Obama creates top job for guarding online security

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama announced Friday he is creating the post of cyber security coordinator to oversee "a new comprehensive approach to securing America's digital infrastructure."

President Obama announces Friday the creation of the post of cyber security coordinator.

The president said he will personally select the person who takes on that post.
"I'll depend on this official in all matters relating to cyber security, and this official will have my full support and regular access to me as we confront these challenges," he said.
The economic crisis cannot be tackled without ensuring the safety of the nation's online activities, Obama said. "America's economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cyber security," he said.
"Our technological advantage is a key to America's military dominance," he added. "But our defense and military networks are under constant attack. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have spoken of their desire to unleash a cyber attack on our country -- attacks that are harder to detect and harder to defend against."
The country is not adequately prepared, he said, to defend against a possible "weapon of mass disruption." Watch Obama's announcement »
"From now on ... the networks and computers we depend on every day will be treated as they should be: as a strategic national asset," Obama said. "Protecting this infrastructure will be a national security priority."
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Obama vowed that these efforts "will not include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic. We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans."
"I know how it feels" to have online privacy violated, the president said.
He referred to last year's hacking of computers at his campaign headquarters. The hackers did not access databases containing information about campaign donors, but did gain access to policy position papers and travel plans, Obama said.
CNN reported in November that computers at the headquarters of Obama's rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, had been broken into with similar results.
Obama's announcement Friday followed a 60-day review of the government's cyber security efforts, conducted by the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council.
The results of the review are posted at www.whitehouse.gov, along with links to more than 100 documents that helped inform the review.
The military has said it is working to create a Cyber Command. Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the command would initially be under the U.S. Strategic Command.
The president is expected, within weeks, to sign a classified order officially creating the command, defense officials told CNN.
The Department of Homeland Security reports the number of cyber attacks on government and private networks increased from 4,095 in 2005 to 72,065 in 2008.
This month, a Transportation Department audit -- carried out after hackers got into a support system containing personnel records -- indicated the nation's air-traffic control system could be at risk.

Why our 'amazing' science fiction future fizzled

(CNN) -- At the 1964 New York World's Fair, people stood in line for hours to look at a strange sight.

If only the future looked like "Star Trek," with its nifty gadgets that seem to solve every problem.

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They wanted to see the "Futurama," a miniaturized replica of a typical 21st century American city that featured moving sidewalks, computer-guided cars zipping along congestion-free highways and resort hotels beneath the sea.
Forty years later, we're still waiting for those congestion-free highways -- along with the jet pack, the paperless office and all those "Star Trek"-like gadgets that were supposed to make 21st-century life so easy.
Daniel Wilson has been waiting as well. He's looked at the future we imagined for ourselves in pulp comic books, old science magazines and cheesy sci-fi movies from the 1950s, and came up with one question.
Why isn't the future what it used to be?
"I feel entitled to have all this technology that's been promised at a certain time," says Wilson, author of "Where's My Jetpack?" "I look up and say, 'Where's all this stuff?' ''
Some of that futuristic stuff, it turns out, is already here.
Visionaries actually invented objects like flying cars, but they could never work out the real world applications, Wilson says. Other inventions had the same problem. Ordinary people didn't want to have anything to do with them.
These futuristic follies include everything from "Smell-O-Vision," an invention that helped moviegoers smell as well as see movies; Sanyo's "ultrasonic ultra-squeaky clean human washing machine" (it was dubbed the "human washing machine," but wouldn't fit in an ordinary bathroom) and, of course, the jet pack.
"Scientists are OK at predicting what technology is going to happen in the future," Wilson says. "They're really bad at predicting how it's going to affect us."
What happened to my jet pack?
The jet pack is a perfect example of predicting the future, Wilson says. He says the jet pack first appeared in 1928 in an Amazing Stories comic book, which featured the hero Buck Rogers zooming though the sky in a jet pack.
The jet pack was actually developed by 1961, Wilson says. An inventor mounted a rocket onto a backpack and called it a rocket belt. A variation of the rocket belt even appeared in the 1965 James Bond movie, "Thunderball."
Today, the jet pack continues to grab inventors' imaginations.
A daredevil wearing a jet pack flew across a 1,500-foot-wide canyon in Colorado in November. A Swiss pilot, dubbed "Fusion Man," flew across the English Channel last year using a single jet-propelled wing. And a New Zealand inventor recently invented a jet pack, which weighs about 250 pounds, that reportedly can run for 30 minutes.
The jet pack, though, has never really taken off, Wilson says. The problem is its practical application. While a rocket belt could propel a screaming human to 60 mph in seconds, its fuel lasted for only about half a minute, "which led to more screaming," Wilson says.
The military couldn't find a useful application for it either. A soldier with a jet pack might look cool, but he's an easy target. Nor could a jet pack be of use to ordinary people who wanted to avoid rush-hour traffic, Wilson says. Jet-packing hordes could transform the skies into an aerial demolition derby, with air rage and drunk drivers turned into wobbly human torpedoes.
Yet other bold visions of the future have come true. Remember Rosey the Robot? That was the name of the robotic maid that waited on the Jetsons, the popular cartoon family from the future.
Rosey has become "Wakamaru." That's the name of a 3-foot-tall robot with a goofy grin that the Mitsubishi conglomerate in Japan invented to assist elderly people at home by doing everything from reminding them to take their medicine to looking out for burglars. Wakamaru can recognize faces and up to 10,000 words, Wilson says.
"Beam me Up Scotty," is a tagline from another television show, "Star Trek". But teleportation has been invented, Wilson says. He says a group of international scientists successfully transported a photon -- a bundle of electromagnetic energy -- from one side of a room to another in 1993. Physicists routinely conduct teleportation experiments today, Wilson says.
"Teleporting anything, even elementary particles, is mind-blowing," Wilson says. "Why is it that most people don't know it exists? It hasn't been put into practice yet. In real life, it's always about, 'What can you do for me?' "
A darker view of technology's future
People's fascination with technology's imprint on the future didn't start, however, in the mid-20th century with shows like "The Jetsons" or "Star Trek."
Joseph Corn, co-author of "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future," found an inflated optimism about technology's impact on the future as far back as the 19th century, when writers like Jules Verne ("Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea") were creating wondrous versions of the future.
Even then, people had a misplaced faith in the power of inventions to make life easier, Corn says.
For example, the typical 19th-century American city was crowded and smelly. The problem was horses. They created traffic jams, filled the streets with their droppings and, when they died, their carcasses.
But around the turn of the 20th century, Americans were predicting that another miraculous invention would deliver them from the burden of the horse and hurried urban life -- the automobile, Corn says.
"There were a lot of predictions associated with early automobiles," Corn says. "They would help eliminate congestion in the city and the messy, unsanitary streets of the city."
Corn says Americans' faith in the power of technology to reshape the future is due in part to their history. Americans have never accepted a radical political transformation that would change their future. They prefer technology, not radical politics, to propel social change.
"Technology has been seen by many Americans as a way to get a better tomorrow without having to deal with revolutionary change," Corn says.
Today, however, a more sober view of technology has sneaked into the nation's popular culture. In dystopian sci-fi films like "Blade Runner," and "Terminator," technology creates more problems than it solves.
"Battlestar Galactica,'' the recent television series, is a prime example. It depicts a world where human beings have created amazing technology that has brought them to the precipice of extinction. There's no Buck Rogers zooming blissfully through the sky.
The show follows the journey of a group of humans who created a race of robots called Cylons. The Cylons rebel, virtually wipe out humanity with nuclear weapons, and pursue the survivors through space.
Mark Verheiden, a Battlestar writer, says the show's writers pay attention to current events when plotting their story lines. The contemporary world is filled with the unintended consequences of technology, he says.
"There are so many things you can't anticipate when you create a new technology," he says. "Who would have predicted that the Internet would be taking down shopping malls and wiping out newspapers?''
In Battlestar's finale, human beings abandon their faith in technology's ability to improve the future. They destroy their fancy machines and start again as simple hunter-gatherers.
"At some point, you can't expect a miracle to come in the form of technology to save us," Verheiden says. "At some point, the miracle has to come from a change in attitude and a new outlook."
That doesn't mean, however, that Verheiden isn't a fan of imagining future technology. He says he grew up watching "Star Trek" and immersing himself in Futurama-like exhibits.
The elevated cities and the "Star Trek" voyages of yesteryear may now seem corny, but at least they show humanity has a future, he says.
" 'Star Trek' was saying [that] a thousand years from now, people [will] figure out how to get along," Verheiden says. "In some ways, sci-fi says that the future is still optimistic, because no matter how bleak things are, it suggests that we're still here."

California high court upholds same-sex marriage ban

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- California's highest court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages Tuesday but allowed about 18,000 unions performed before the ban to remain valid.

Protesters gather outside the California Supreme Court in San Francisco on Tuesday.

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Supporters of November ballot initiative Proposition 8 hailed the ruling, but about 1,000 advocates of same-sex marriages who gathered outside the court building in San Francisco met the 6-1 decision with chants of "Shame on you."
Following the ruling, supporters of same-sex marriage took to the streets to protest.
CNN affiliate KGO reported that after the opinion was made public lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender officers were brought in specifically to help manage the crowd.
During those protests 159 adults and three juveniles were arrested and cited for jaywalking, San Francisco Police Department Sgt. Lyn Tomioka told CNN.
Similar rallies were held Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, where 3,500 to 5,000 protesters took part, according to police estimates. There were no arrests, said Julianne Sohn of the Los Angeles Police Department.
There were also reports of demonstrations in San Diego and some other California cities, as well as in major cities nationwide. iReport.com: Rally in San Diego
Lisa Angelot and Karen Brandenberger were married when it was legal, but they said their own marriage is not enough, and told KGO they were prepared to be arrested to make the point.
"It will be my first time to be arrested," Angelot told KGO.
Many supporters said it was most upsetting to have the right to marry yanked away from them after last year's court ruling.
"It is impossible to square the elation that we felt just a year ago with the grief that we feel today," said Kate Kendell, head of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "And it is impossible to reconcile the court's ruling from a year ago with its upholding of Proposition 8 today."
The same court, dominated by Republican appointees, ruled in May 2008 that the state constitution guaranteed gay and lesbian couples the "basic civil right" to marry. Voters responded in November by approving the marriage ban by a margin of 52 to 48 percent. iReport.com: React to court decision and share photos, video
Opponents of the ban argued that it improperly altered California's constitution to restrict a fundamental right guaranteed in the state charter. Its supporters argued that Californians long have had the right to change their state constitution through ballot initiatives.
Tuesday's ruling found that the proposition restricted the designation of marriage "while not otherwise affecting the fundamental constitutional rights of same-sex couples," as Chief Justice Ronald George wrote.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Carlos Moreno -- the court's only Democratic appointee -- wrote that the decision "is not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution." Watch what was at stake »
The decision sparked protests in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
"It's nice that my marriage is still intact, but that's not the point," said Kathleen White, who was among those awaiting the ruling in San Francisco. "The point is that everybody should have the same civil rights across the board."
But Miles McPherson, pastor of the Rock Church in San Diego, said the court "did the right thing."
Voters in 28 other states have approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriages, and none has been rejected, he said.
"God didn't create the family that way," McPherson said. "You can't have a family with a mother and a mother, because [children] need a mother and a father to nurture their personality and their character."
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Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the ruling "should encourage pro-family activists not only in California but across the country." But he said that by preserving marriages performed before the ban, the justices could have opened a door to a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was unclear whether advocates had an avenue to appeal Tuesday's ruling, however. And Dennis Herrera, San Francisco's city attorney, said the fight for same-sex marriage rights would most likely go on "in the electoral arena."
"Today we're faced with a disappointing decision," Herrera said. "But I think we also know it could have been worse." View reactions to the ruling »
A new effort, dubbed Yes on Equality, has begun working to place an initiative on the 2010 ballot that would repeal Proposition 8.
State justices left unaddressed whether same-sex marriages performed in other states before the ban was adopted would be recognized in California, and advocates would have to argue that the measure violated their rights under the U.S. Constitution for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
California took its first steps toward recognizing same-sex marriages in 2004, when San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. iReport.com: React to court decision and share photos, video
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposed the initiative, praised the court for leaving the previous marriages intact and urged opponents of the decision to respond "peacefully and lawfully."
"While I believe that one day either the people or courts will recognize gay marriage, as governor of California, I will uphold the decision of the California Supreme Court," Schwarzenegger said in a written statement.
Four states -- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Iowa -- currently allow same-sex marriages. A Vermont law making such marriages legal will take effect in September. And the District of Columbia voted May 5 to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, though it does not itself give marriage licenses to same-sex couples.