Same-Sex Marriage Bill Passes Key California Senate Committee--Likely to Be on Governor's Desk Again

Leno reintroduced the gay-marriage bill to the California Legislature after a trial court found California’s ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. The trial court’s decision was later overturned by the First District Court of Appeal in 2006, but the original decision gave lawmakers the incentive they needed to reawaken the issue. This time around, the bill is worded to define marriage as a union between two consenting adults, without directly addressing the controversial code of Prop 22.

Proponents of the bill include NAACP California State Conference, the ACLU, and California National Organization for Women. For supporters, the bill is one step towards legal equality for same-sex marriages. In a press statement, Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors said, “LGBT Californians want the choice to marry so that we can live our lives with the same dignity and freedom that everyone deserves.”

“Same-sex couples in California and their families still are not eligible for more than a thousand federal protections offered to married couples, including family and medical leave, social security benefits, long-term care insurance and the ability to sponsor a partner for immigration benefits” Leno said in a press statement.

Opponents, including the Traditional Values Coalition and the California Family Council, argue that the bill is essentially no different than previous attempts in its attempt to override Prop 22. In a letter to the Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Dave Jones (D- Sacramento), Campaign for Children and Families President Randy Thomasson wrote, “it’s obvious that AB 43 is an unconstitutional destruction of the people’s vote to preserve marriage as a special institution for a man and a woman.” The campaign’s website (http://www.savecalifornia.com) urges Californians to “protect real marriage” by opposing AB 43.

The governor has not taken an official position on the bill, his press office said, nor does he intend to until the bill has passed the legislature. Withholding formal support and opposition, the office explained, is standard procedure for Schwarzenegger. His historic reluctance to take positions on bills is well documented, such that it was news less than two weeks ago when Deputy Press Secretary Gina Grebitus said in a telephone interview that the governor felt a “definite urgency” for AB 1525 (a bill on private post-secondary school regulations) to pass the legislature so he could sign it “as quickly as possible.”

While Schwarzenegger may not formalize an opinion on the same-sex marriage bill in question, his informal opinion can be surmised from his more revealing quotes. In a 2003 interview, radio talk show host Sean Hannity asked Schwarzenegger if he supported gay marriage. “No,” the governor replied, “I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman.”

Hayley Leventhal is a summer intern with the California Progress Report as part of the University of California Sacramento Center Public-Affairs Journalism Program. She is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is majoring in political science. Leventhal is a native of Santa Cruz, where she attended Cabrillo College before enrolling at UC-Berkeley. She was active in Cabrillo College Democrats and as a 2004 campaign volunteer for Moveon.org.