San Francisco ? Gay and lesbian couples won another reprieve Friday when a judge declined to immediately stop San Francisco from granting them marriage licenses, saying conservative groups failed to prove the weddings would cause irreparable harm.

Judge Ronald Evans Quidachay denied the Campaign for California Families’ request for a temporary restraining order, but said the group had the right to a hearing on its argument that the city is violating state law.

The conservative group argued that the weddings harmed all the Californians who voted in 2000 for Proposition 22, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

The judge suggested that the rights of the gay and lesbian couples appeared to be more substantial.

“If the court has to weigh rights here, on the one hand you are talking about voting rights, and on the other you are talking about equal rights,” Quidachay said.

Quidachay consolidated the Campaign for California Families’ lawsuit against the city with one filed by another conservative group, and told lawyers for both sides to work out between themselves when the next hearing would be held.

Mathew Staver, a lawyer representing the Campaign for California Families, said he believed the court ultimately would find that Mayor Gavin Newsom acted illegally when he started the process last week.

“He can’t decide to grant same-sex marriage licenses any more than he can declare war against a foreign country,” Staver said.

But Chief Deputy City Atty. Therese Stewart said the failure of conservative opponents to win emergency injunctions demonstrated that the city had a strong case.

“Both judges really recognized there is nobody who is hurt by allowing gay people to marry,” Stewart said.

Newsom remained defiant, officiating at the wedding of one of California’s most prominent lesbian politicians inside his offices at City Hall.

James Walker places a ring on his partner's finger, Michael Palmer, while trading vows under the direction of Rev. David Gant, center, in the back of the Sandoval County Courthouse in Bernalillo, N.M. Sandoval County started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Friday morning after the county attorney deemed that refusing to issue the licenses to same-sex couples could open the county to legal liability. The attorney general later declared the licenses invalid.