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Justices Marvin Baxter, Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan dissented.

The court majority “does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice,” Baxter wrote.

One hundred people lined up outside the state courthouse in San Francisco at 10 a.m. today to purchase a copy of the decision for $10 apiece. Some people bought 10 to 15 copies, calling it a historic document. One man said he planned to give them out as Christmas presents.

Outside, couples, once denied marriage, hugged, kissed, shouted and shook their fists at the sky. Holding up a sign that says, “Life feels different when you’re married,” Ellen Pontac hugged her partner, Shelly Bailes.

“The best day of my life was when I met Ellen,” Bailes said. “This was as good as that.” (An earlier version of this story incorrectly gave Pontac’s first name as Helen.)

Added Bailes: “This feels good for us. But I can’t imagine what it means for all those young couples with their entire lives ahead of them.”

The state high court’s ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. An initiative that would amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage is expected to qualify for the November ballot.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vetoed two bills in favor of gay marriage, said today he would not try to undermine the court’s ruling and would continue to oppose the proposed ballot measure.

“I respect the court’s decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling,” the governor said in a statement.

Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage California, the initiative’s sponsor, said today’s ruling would “energize and activate a lot of people who thought the courts wouldn’t do this.”

The decision becomes final in 30 days and must return to a trial judge to be formally implemented. People of the same sex would then be permitted to marry in California. Lawyers on both side of the debate said they were uncertain how the proposed November initiative, if passed, would affect gay couples who had already married.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged to officiate over as many same-sex marriages as possible.

“I will stand with you,” the mayor said, from the courtyard of Los Angeles’ Gay and Lesbian Community Center. “I will do everything in my power to keep this decision the law of the land.”

Paul Drugan, a spokesman for the office of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, said the county was not immediately granting same-sex marriage licenses, noting that the court’s decision doesn’t take effect for 30 days.

“Our office is awaiting a legal analysis of the court’s decision and a timeline of implementation,” Drugan said.

The mood at the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau was celebratory.

“San Francisco is proud to welcome gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender couples to the first city in the United States to perform same-sex marriages and the only state in the U.S. where everyone has a constitutional right to marry,” said Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of the convention bureau. “We encourage visitors to celebrate the freedom to marry in San Francisco -- where LGBT history continues to be made.”

Today’s landmark ruling stemmed from San Francisco’s highly publicized same-sex weddings, which in 2004 helped spur a conservative backlash in an election year and a national dialogue over gay rights.

Several states later passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, and same-sex marriage became an issue in the race for president.

After a month of jubilant same-sex nuptials in San Francisco in 2004, the California Supreme Court intervened and ordered the city to stop issuing licenses to same sex couples. The state high court later invalidated the licenses and declined to address the constitutionality of a state ban on same-sex marriage until lower courts acted first.

Today’s ruling by the Republican-dominated court affects more than 100,000 same-sex couples in the state, about a quarter of whom have children, according to census figures. It came after high courts in New York, Washington and New Jersey refused to extend marriage rights to gay couples.

Gay rights lawyers won an early victory in the dispute when a San Francisco trial judge decided in 2005 that gays should be permitted to wed. An appeals court later overturned that decision on a 2-1 vote, ruling that only the Legislature or the voters could change California’s traditional definition of marriage.

Lawyers in favor of same-sex marriage argued that a state law the defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman discriminated on the basis of both gender and sexual orientation.

Opponents countered that the ban was gender-neutral, barring both women and men from marrying members of their sex, and that people could be treated differently because of their sexual orientation if there was a rational basis for it.

In 2000, 61% of California voters approved a ballot measure, Proposition 22, that said “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.”

Since then, California has passed one of the strongest domestic partnership laws in the country, giving registered same-sex couples most of the rights of married people.

The plan by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Atty. Dennis Herrera and gay rights lawyers to challenge state law by marrying same-sex couples in 2004 was carefully drawn.

City officials chose the first couples to wed, hoping their long unions and sympathetic stories would put a face on same-sex marriage that courts would find difficult to reject. The city also decided to begin the weddings on a day when courts were closed to deprive opponents of quick legal intervention. One of the first couples to wed, the lead plaintiffs in San Francisco’s lawsuit challenging marriage laws, has since separated.

The long parade of weddings at City Hall -- across the street from the California Supreme Court -- provided a dramatic backdrop for the gay rights debate.

Young gay fathers with babies strapped to their chests, lesbian couples with children, and elderly gay couples who had been together for decades celebrated their unions while passersby honked their horns and friends threw rice and popped champagne corks. Protesters eventually showed up, carrying signs and denouncing the newlyweds.

Prior to today’s ruling, gay rights lawyers predicted that a victory in the California Supreme Court would help them defeat the proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, which the lawyers expect to qualify for the November ballot. A loss in the court would help the backers of the measure, they said.

The California Supreme Court has six Republican appointees and one Democrat. Scholars have described the court under the leadership of George, the chief justice, as cautious and moderately conservative.