WASHINGTON (ABP) — Legislators in California have scuttled, at least temporarily, an attempt to amend that state's Constitution to ban gay marriage.
Committees of both the state's legislative chambers — the California Senate and California Assembly — rejected the amendment May 10. It not only would have inserted a ban on same-sex marriage into the state's charter, but also, according to its opponents, would have rolled back other rights the state has established legislatively for same-sex couples.
The decision means the amendment will not be sent to the legislature or the state's voters for final approval.
The amendment's chief sponsor, Republican Assemblyman Ray Haynes, said it simply would have strengthened an already existing state law that defines marriage in exclusively heterosexual terms. The state's voters passed that provision in 2000.
Haynes, according to news reports, said the state's courts and legislators had “eviscerated” the meaning of the statutory gay-marriage ban by establishing a domestic partnership registry for gay couples in 2003. The partnerships provide many of the same legal protections and responsibilities as marriage.
Additionally, a state judge ruled in March that the law violates the California Constitution's equal-protection provisions. While state officials have appealed that decision, it and a handful of other lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the state's gay-marriage ban may force the California Supreme Court to rule on the issue within the next couple of years.
One Washington-based gay-rights opponent said the legislators' decision was “an act of pompousness that shows complete disdain for California voters.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, in a May 11 e-mail newsletter to the group's supporters, went on to note that like-minded groups in California have begun a petition drive to get such an amendment placed on the 2006 ballot. Such a move would require nearly 600,000 signatures.
But state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, who is a lesbian, said California has become more tolerant since 2000. “This is about America, the place where no civil-rights movement has ever failed,” she said, according to the Associated Press.