California Approves Gay Marriage

[Isaac]

California Senate approves bill allowing gay marriage
SACRAMENTO (AP) —

Handing gay rights advocates a major victory, the California Senate approved legislation Thursday that would legalize same-sex marriages in the nation's most populous state.

Sen. Liz Figueroa: 'When I leave this Legislature, I want to be able to tell my grandchildren I stood up for dignity and rights for all.'
By Rich Pedroncelli, AP

The 21-15 vote made the Senate the first legislative chamber in the country to approve a gay marriage bill. It sets the stage for a showdown in the state Assembly, which narrowly rejected a gay marriage bill in June.

"Equality is equality, period," said one of the bill's supporters, Sen. Liz Figueroa, D-Sunol. "When I leave this Legislature, I want to be able to tell my grandchildren I stood up for dignity and rights for all."

But Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-La Mesa, suggested that "higher power" opposed the legislation.

"This is not the right thing to do," he said. "We should protect traditional marriage and uphold all of those values and institutions that have made our society and keep our society together today."

But Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, said a number of churches supported the bill: "I don't think anyone should claim God as being on their side in this debate," she said.

California already confers many of the rights and duties of marriage on gay couples, who can register as domestic partners. Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay marriages when the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex weddings there in 2003.

Several senators equated the struggle for gay marriage to other civil rights movements. They said arguments against the bill were similar to earlier arguments in support of slavery and opposing interracial marriage.

"This is probably the most profound civil rights movement of our generation, without q doubt," said Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough.

Gay rights advocates called Thursday's California vote historic.

"It will make all California families safer and more secure if it becomes law," said Seth Kilbourn, director of the Human Rights Campaign Marriage Project in New York. "The fact they debated and voted on this relatively quickly today sends a message that there is momentum for this bill."

Senate approval gave the bill's author, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, another chance to send the legislation to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Legislature is expected to adjourn its 2005 session next week.

Leno said he planned to bring up the bill on Tuesday in the Assembly and predicted that the Senate vote would help sway undecided lawmakers in his house.

"We are so very close," he said in an interview after the Senate vote. "It would be very disappointing for this body not to be able to stand up for civil rights."

After the Assembly rejected his bill in June by four votes, Leno amended the measure's provisions into another one of his bills that had already passed the Assembly and was awaiting action in the Senate. That's the bill the Senate approved Thursday and sent back to the Assembly for a vote on Senate amendments.

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson said the office would not comment about how the governor would act if the bill is sent to his desk.

"The governor believes that the people spoke when they passed Pr position 22, and now it went to the courts and that's where it should be," she said. "The governor will abide by what the courts rule."

She added that Schwarzenegger does support domestic partnerships.

Proposition 22 was approved by California voters in 2000. The initiative added a section to the state Family Code stating that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

It was put on the ballot when it appeared that Hawaii might legalize gay marriages and was intended to prevent California from recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Leno's bill would amend a separate section of state law that bars the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in California.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, one of six gay members of the state Legislature, told the chamber that gay couples have the same hopes for their relationships as heterosexual couples.

"Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens," said Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. "This is a bill whose time has come."

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, agreed that gay couples are entitled to certain rights but not the right to marry.

"Can't you see that marriage is a fundamentally different institution?" he said. "Marriage is the institution by which we propagate our species and inculcate our young."

The vote came as a state appellate court is considering appeals of a San Francisco judge's ruling that overturned California laws banning recognition of gay marriages. At the same time, opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to qualify initiatives for the 2006 ballot that would place a ban on gay marriages in the state Constitution.

Andrew Pugno, legal adviser to one of the two groups trying to qualify such an amendment, called the Senate vote an insult to the majority of California voters who approved Proposition 22.

"The people can speak once and for all by elevating the definition of marriage to the state Constitution, he said.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Here's hopin'

[Not Afraid]

Well, it was done without most of the Republicans present. If the House can pull off the same kind of stunt, we'll have a victory. Somehow, I think all House members will be present and accounted for for this vote. But, we can only hope.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

As happy as I am about this step, I think your title is misleading. The state Senate approved the bill, but it still need to pass through the House and be signed by the Governator.

[scaeagles]

He's gonna veto it. Came out with a statement saying he wouldn't sign the law because it conflicted with prop 22. Says it needs to be decided in the CA court system.

[innerSpaceman]

Yeah, it's really gonna be fun to be able to quote Republican Arnie when future charges of judicial activism are raised. Hahaha, can't wait. Governator is playing right into our hands.

[Kevy Baby]

While I don't like the net outcome, I applaud the Governor respecting the will of the people as voted years back via Prop 22.

Don't get me wrong - I strongly believe that this should be voted into law - Gay Marriage should be legal. But I don't want it done via shady back-door politics. This action, to me, puts the Dems in a very bad light!

[Morrigoon]

Whoa, points on both sides here. Kevy has a point about not blatantly violating the recently declared will of the public (damn them), but I also agree that sometimes it takes a strong statesman to vote his conscience, the will of the public be damned, if they're morally in the wrong.

[innerSpaceman]

The will of the people be damned. That's called MOB RULE. I despise the entire system which allows citizens to legislate through ballot initiatives. I understand it's necessary when legislatures become unresponsive to the citizens, but there's got to be a limit on such mob power.

One of the limits I would propose would be - no ballot initiatives on matters of civil liberties - lest blacks, latinos, homos, et al. get shafted by the mob of the majority voters.

It's the legislature's job to legislate, and I don't see anything unconsitutional with them checking and balancing the people's power to legislate directly through ballot initiatives. Certainly the court has such power, as initiatives are often found to be unconstitutional or otherwise illegal in result. And if anyone wants to take away such check and balance power from the legislature, lets not hear from them about courts having to legislate from the bench. There'll be even more of that if the legislature has to give up on it.

(Heheh, most law comes from the courts anyway, and always has. Cracks me up when I hear about judicial activism and legislating from the bench ... the precise thing the judicial system is designed to do ... and does for the protection of all our rights that the legislature couldn't give a damn about.)

[Name]

Sounds to me like Ah'nold doesn't want to take the backlash of not signing this, and instead blaming a veto on the "will of the people" based on a past initiative. Come on Ah'nold, if your against it, stand up and say your against it like a man.... stop being a girly man and passing the buck.