WASHINGTON (ABP) — With a State Assembly vote Sept. 6, California became the first state in the nation to give legislative approval to full marriage rights for same-sex couples.
The 41-35 vote in the state legislature's lower chamber came six days after the bill passed the California Senate, and only five years after the state's voters effectively banned gay marriage through a popular referendum.
The advance for the gay-rights movement may be short-lived, however, since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reportedly hinted that he may veto the bill, despite his history of support for gay causes.
If Schwarzenegger declines to veto the bill, California would become the first jurisdiction in the United States to legalize gay marriages without being forced to do so by courts.
The bill, known as the “Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act,” would remove gender-specific references from the state codes defining marriage. The act also contains provisions explicitly stating that institutions or clergy would not be forced to perform marriages of which they did not approve.
“Today in California, love conquered fear, principle conquered politics, and equality conquered injustice,” said Geoffrey Kors, head of the gay-rights group Equality California, in a statement released shortly after the vote. “For the first time in our nation's history, the people's elected representatives have taken a stand to protect all families and ensure equality for all.”
But the bill's legislative opponents — all of the Assembly's Republicans and a handful of Democrats — said it is a dangerous precedent.
“Marriage should be between a man and a woman, end of story. Next issue,” Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) said during floor debate on the proposal. “It's not about civil rights or personal rights, it's about acceptance. They want to be accepted as normal. They are not normal.”
Mountjoy and other opponents of the bill pointed out that in 2000, Californians approved Proposition 22 with a 62 percent majority. That referendum defined marriage exclusively in heterosexual terms for the state.
“This highjacking of democracy is utterly inappropriate, as this issue deals with what is best for our children and the future of the state of California,” read a press release from Tony Perkins, director of the Washington-based Family Research Council, a conservative group. “We urge Gov. Schwarzenegger to give the people back their voice and either put this issue, once again, before the people — or veto the bill entirely.”
But Kors and other gay-rights supporters cited a recently released poll that suggests California's likely voters are now evenly divided — with 46 percent on each side — over the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Schwarzenegger, who in 2003 won the governorship in the heavily Democratic state on a platform of social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, is now facing the lowest approval ratings of his tenure. He has until Oct. 6 to sign or veto the bill, or let it go into effect without his signature.
Massachusetts legislators were forced to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003, after that state's highest court said denying marriage rights to gay couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution.
Conservative groups have decried such actions as “judicial activism,” saying such social policies should be approved through legislative processes rather than judges' decrees.
In recent years, legislators in other states — including Vermont and Connecticut — have approved “civil unions” for same-sex couples. Such arrangements provide many of the rights and responsibilities of the institution while reserving the term “marriage” exclusively for heterosexual unions.