California
Gay-marriage rights Legislation
survives Senate
committee vote
By Laura Kurtzman,
MercuryNews.com from the Web, July 13, 2005
SACRAMENTO -- The effort to
win marriage rights for gay couples in California was given new life Tuesday
when a Senate committee approved it on a party-line vote.
The bill, by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, died last month in the
Assembly, after falling four votes short of a majority. But Leno revived
it in the Senate, where the bill is expected to pass -- and he is optimistic he
can muster enough support in the Assembly.
Since his earlier defeat, Leno has won an endorsement by the United Farm
Workers, which could provide cover for moderate Latino members who have been
reluctant to vote in favor of an issue that is widely unpopular in their
community. And on Tuesday, the city of Los Angeles passed a measure
endorsing gay marriage.
But the reappearance of the gay-marriage issue also mobilized dozens of
impassioned opponents, most of whom identified themselves as members of church
organizations.
Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, which opposes
gay marriage, said the measure's revival was encouraging people to sign
petitions to qualify a ballot measure that would create a constitutional ban on
gay marriage.
"The Democrat politicians' intolerant attack upon marriage will backfire," he
said in a statement after the vote. "Californians are quickly learning
that the Democratic Party has become the party of homosexual 'marriage.' "
Leno testified in support of his bill sitting next to the Rev. Tauoa Head, of
the United Church of Christ, which recently endorsed the idea of gay marriage.
Head urged the committee members to vote in favor of the bill, saying, "You will
never regret this."
The bill passed the Senate Judiciary committee on a 5-2 vote. The two
Republicans on the committee, who voted no, were subdued. Sen. Dick
Ackerman, R-Tustin, did not comment during the hearing and Sen. Bill Morrow,
R-San Juan Capistrano, limited his critique to procedural questions.
He said Californians had already decided the gay-marriage issue by passing
Proposition 22 in 2000, a bill that prohibited California from recognizing
same-sex marriages conducted in other states.
"In Proposition 22, the people of California collectively spoke," he said. "It
would be better to take this issue to the people if you're trying to change
Proposition 22."
However, that measure was recently overturned by a lower court, and Democrats
said they felt it was their duty to lead on the gay-marriage issue.
"Sometimes the people are wrong," said Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles.
Sen. Liz Figueroa, D-Fremont, said she planned to tell her grandchildren that
she had voted for the bill.
And Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, who is one of three lesbians in the state
Senate, gave a quietly indignant speech in which she said those who opposed the
bill were discriminating against gays.
"I think this is the civil rights issue of the day," she said, as her cheeks
reddened with anger. "I do not feel protected by the marriage laws of
California, because I can't marry anyone I love."
Leno's bill, now known as AB 849, is expected to pass the Senate next month and
then go to the Assembly in late August or early September.
When the bill came to a vote last month, 37 of the Assembly's Democrats voted
for it, five voted against it and six abstained or were absent. But Leno
said Tuesday that he now needs only three votes -- not four -- to pass it out of
the Assembly. He said one member -- Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton -- voted for
it at one point but was absent for the final vote.
Leno said he expected he would gain momentum after the bill passes the Senate
and cited recent events, including the legalization of gay marriage in Canada
and Spain.
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