Gay rocker Melissa Etheridge has pledged to fight the re-installed ban on same sex marriages in California, even though she and partner Tammy Lynn Michaels could legally wed elsewhere.

Etheridge was stunned by the news that Proposition 8 passed in California overnight on Tuesday, banning gay marriage, but she isn't planning on leaving the state.

Speaking exclusively to website Momlogic.com, the lesbian rock star says, “The gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it, even though we could be married in Massachusetts or Connecticut, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries; this is our home.

"This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full right of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us. That is not the American way.”

But, in the meantime, the 44 year old is threatening to hold back tax payments in a defiant blog posting.

Etheridge declares that if she's not "allowed the same right (to marry) under the state constitution... I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes, because I am not a full citizen. There is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California."

Etheridge and Michaels were planning a wedding ceremony when the new legislation was voted in. Under the new law, such a union will not be recognized under state law. The couple staged a commitment ceremony in Malibu, California in 2003.