September 07, 2005
The Marriage Wars Heat Up
by Jeff Langstraat
Congratulations California! Yesterday, the Assembly joined the Senate in passing a bill providing equal marriage rights for same-sex couples:
With no votes to spare, California's lawmakers became the first in the United States to act without a court order to sanction gay marriages. The measure was approved after three Democratic lawmakers who abstained on a similar proposal that failed in June changed their minds under intense lobbying by bill author Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and gay and civil rights activists. No Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Forty-one of the Assembly's 47 Democrats voted yes; four Democrats voted "no," and two abstained.The bill, which would change California's legal definition of marriage from "a civil contract between a man and a woman" to a "civil contract between two persons," now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has signaled that he will veto it.
Ahnold wants the Courts to decide the issue--then the Rs can blame it on "judicial activism." Despite the looming veto, this does mark a historic point in the American struggle for marriage equality. In 2005, the California legislature voted to approve full equaity for same-sex couples, and the Connecticut legislature created Civil Unions. Both of these occured without judicial mandate (although cases are still pending in both states).
Here in (still) the only state to have enacted equal marriage rights, we're still struggling to keep them. Next Wednesday, the legislature will convene as Constitutional Convention. The issue: a pending amendment that would bar same-sex marriage and create civil unions. This proposed amendment passed last year, and if it passes next week it will appear on the 2006 ballot. It's looking more and more likely that this amendment will fail next week.
There's a bigger fight looming, though. Attorney General Tom Reilly just kissed off the gay vote by certifying an amendment initiative that would simply do away with marriage equality altogether:
The citizen's initiative needs at least 65,825 signatures from supporters before it goes to a vote in a joint session of the House and Senate. But it has a lower threshold for approval from the Legislature: only 25 percent of lawmakers need to support it to send it to the ballot in 2008.
Those are incredibly low thresholds. GLAD is preparing to challenge the potential amendment in court, and MassEquality is doing much of the organizing and lobbying. Both organizations can use help to keep marriage equality in Massachusetts.
It's going to be an ugly couple of years. We are going to see major resources flowing into the state from the Anti-Gay Industry. Getting rid of marriage equality is as big a goal for some of them as overturning Roe v. Wade. They're going to throw everything they have at us, and the violence that accompanies their attacks will come to.
We've still got a hell of a fight on our hands.
Posted by in Civil Rights, Culture War, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Marriage, Politics
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