California Farm
Workers Union
Supports Gay Marriage
Bill
by Matt Johns
365Gay.com from the Web, June 24, 2005
Los Angeles, CA -- The United
Farm Workers Union has announced its support for a bill to allow same-sex
couples in California to marry.
"This is about one civil rights movement joining forces with another to affirm
shared values of social justice. Our struggles for economic justice and
equality are rightfully linked: the farm workers current boycott of Gallo
wine and the battle to achieve equality for all," said United Farm Workers
Southern California Political Director Christine Chavez in a statement.
The announcement by the mainly Latino union dispels a widespread assumption in
California that most Hispanics oppose same-sex marriage.
"This announcement has special meaning for me," Chavez said.
"Beginning in the 1970s, before there was widespread public acceptance of gays,
especially among Latinos, my grandfather, Cesar Chavez, spoke out strongly for
gay rights. He attended gay rights rallies and marches. He brought
with him the UFW’s black-eagle flags and farm workers who wished to
participate."
The same-sex marriage bill resurfaced earlier this week, after being defeated in
the Assembly last month, when its sponsor, Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San
Francisco), announced he would attempt to attach it as an amendment to a bill
already before the Senate.
The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act would require local
clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples but allow people opposed
to gay marriage to refuse to conduct weddings.
The United Farm Workers Union endorsement was welcomed by the state's largest
LGBT civil rights group.
“California is home to the largest population of Latino same-sex couples and
their families in the country and the UFW honors those relationships by their
endorsement of marriage equality," said Geoffrey Kors, Executive Director of
Equality California.
"We stand tall with the United Farm Workers in support of equality and economic
justice and look forward to our joint efforts to pass equal marriage rights
legislation and secure economic justice for all Californians.”
The NAACP is also a backer of the marriage bill.
It will be sometime next month before it Leno's attachment comes to a vote in
the Senate. If it is accepted as an amendment to an existing bill and
passes the Senate it would then need to pass the House and be signed into law by
Gov. Schwarzenegger.
If the bill passes all of those tests California would become the second state
after Massachusetts to allow same-sex couples to marry and the first where the
measure passed on a vote of the legislature.
(Emphasis added.)
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