gaygroups
03-16-2005, 01:38 PM
SAN FRANCISCO - Five years ago this month, California voters passed a law that tried to preserve marriage as the exclusive province of heterosexual couples.
But following a trial judge's decision Monday to strike down the statute, the burning question for gay rights advocates and their opponents is whether the electorate would vote that way again if a constitutional amendment banning same-sex nuptials makes it to the ballot.
While lawyers on both sides braced themselves for lengthy appeals that will most likely take the matter to the California Supreme Court, activists on both sides agreed that in the long-term it will be won or lost in the court of public opinion. If the state follows the 13 others that added gay marriage bans to their constitutions last year, the move would put the issue out of the control of judges and lawmakers.
"The gay community constantly beats the drum of, 'We will get gay marriage through the Legislature or the courts.' They're not going to the people because they know they will never get it at the ballot box," said Benjamin Lopez, a lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition, a church-based group that is spearheading efforts to get such an amendment voted on in California. "The public is wholeheartedly against this concept."
The coalition has persuaded two legislators to sponsor anti-gay marriage amendments and pledged to launch a citizens initiative drive if the Legislature fails to put them on the ballot. Under that likely scenario, the question probably wouldn't get put to voters until next year, Lopez said. An amendment needs a majority to pass.
Yet the organization is so confident of its ultimate success that it is seeking not only to ban gay marriage, but to rescind the myriad spousal benefits the state already grants same-sex couples who register as domestic partners, he said.
"These are the same voters that five years ago passed a definition of marriage in the law. I'm sure they would pass a definition of marriage in the state Constitution," Lopez said.
Supporters of same-sex marriage, however, think the public's acceptance of gay couples has changed significantly since Proposition 22 passed with 61 percent of the vote in March 2000. The initiative, which stated that California would only recognize a marriage between a man and a woman as valid, came about in the wake of Vermont granting marriagelike status to gays who entered into civil unions.
Since then, though, the state Legislature has extended nearly all the rights and responsibilities of marriage to domestic partners, while gay couples have been allowed to legally wed in Massachusetts and Canada, noted Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, the state's largest gay rights lobbying group.
"This is a very different time. With Proposition 22, we were voting on something that didn't exist and wasn't real to people," Kors said. "Today, everyone has an opinion on the subject. It's no longer, 'Oh yeah, marriage is between a man and a woman' or 'This is something that may happen in the future.' This is real."
Mark Baldassare, research director of the Public Policy Institute of California, predicted that if an anti-gay marriage amendment were on the ballot now, the results would be substantially closer than five years ago. A statewide poll the institute conducted last March showed 44 percent of respondents favored allowing gays and lesbians to marry, compared to 38 percent four years earlier.
"People see the different sides of the issue in a way they hadn't before. Both the pros and the cons have been more often discussed," Baldassare said.
During an appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that while he personally supports domestic partnerships and opposes gay marriage, he would not be in favor of amending the state constitution if the state Supreme Court agrees that withholding marriage licenses from same-sex couples is unconstitutional.
"Whatever the Supreme Court decides, that's exactly what I will stay with," Schwarzenegger said.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office defended the state's existing marriage laws before the trial court, wouldn't say whether he planned to appeal Superior Court Judge's Richard Kramer's ruling that the laws unconstitutionally discriminate against same-sex couples.
At the same time, Lockyer said that even though he thinks gays should be allowed to get married, it would be better if the voters, not the courts, make such a sweeping social change.
"The more appropriate way to enact a change in policy that's this basic is to go to the people," Lockyer said in Washington, D.C. "This issue probably will wind up before the people in one way or another eventually."
Kramer's ruling has been stayed automatically for 60 days to allow time for appeals. Lawyers for two California groups opposed to same-sex marriage plan to appeal the ruling after March 30, the day Kramer is scheduled to make his opinion final.
"I do think people see California as being a line in the sand," Kors said. "If we can turn back this right-wing attempt to codify discrimination in California, that will spread across the country. And if we lose in California, it will be very hard for us to recover on a national basis for some time."
But following a trial judge's decision Monday to strike down the statute, the burning question for gay rights advocates and their opponents is whether the electorate would vote that way again if a constitutional amendment banning same-sex nuptials makes it to the ballot.
While lawyers on both sides braced themselves for lengthy appeals that will most likely take the matter to the California Supreme Court, activists on both sides agreed that in the long-term it will be won or lost in the court of public opinion. If the state follows the 13 others that added gay marriage bans to their constitutions last year, the move would put the issue out of the control of judges and lawmakers.
"The gay community constantly beats the drum of, 'We will get gay marriage through the Legislature or the courts.' They're not going to the people because they know they will never get it at the ballot box," said Benjamin Lopez, a lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition, a church-based group that is spearheading efforts to get such an amendment voted on in California. "The public is wholeheartedly against this concept."
The coalition has persuaded two legislators to sponsor anti-gay marriage amendments and pledged to launch a citizens initiative drive if the Legislature fails to put them on the ballot. Under that likely scenario, the question probably wouldn't get put to voters until next year, Lopez said. An amendment needs a majority to pass.
Yet the organization is so confident of its ultimate success that it is seeking not only to ban gay marriage, but to rescind the myriad spousal benefits the state already grants same-sex couples who register as domestic partners, he said.
"These are the same voters that five years ago passed a definition of marriage in the law. I'm sure they would pass a definition of marriage in the state Constitution," Lopez said.
Supporters of same-sex marriage, however, think the public's acceptance of gay couples has changed significantly since Proposition 22 passed with 61 percent of the vote in March 2000. The initiative, which stated that California would only recognize a marriage between a man and a woman as valid, came about in the wake of Vermont granting marriagelike status to gays who entered into civil unions.
Since then, though, the state Legislature has extended nearly all the rights and responsibilities of marriage to domestic partners, while gay couples have been allowed to legally wed in Massachusetts and Canada, noted Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, the state's largest gay rights lobbying group.
"This is a very different time. With Proposition 22, we were voting on something that didn't exist and wasn't real to people," Kors said. "Today, everyone has an opinion on the subject. It's no longer, 'Oh yeah, marriage is between a man and a woman' or 'This is something that may happen in the future.' This is real."
Mark Baldassare, research director of the Public Policy Institute of California, predicted that if an anti-gay marriage amendment were on the ballot now, the results would be substantially closer than five years ago. A statewide poll the institute conducted last March showed 44 percent of respondents favored allowing gays and lesbians to marry, compared to 38 percent four years earlier.
"People see the different sides of the issue in a way they hadn't before. Both the pros and the cons have been more often discussed," Baldassare said.
During an appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that while he personally supports domestic partnerships and opposes gay marriage, he would not be in favor of amending the state constitution if the state Supreme Court agrees that withholding marriage licenses from same-sex couples is unconstitutional.
"Whatever the Supreme Court decides, that's exactly what I will stay with," Schwarzenegger said.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office defended the state's existing marriage laws before the trial court, wouldn't say whether he planned to appeal Superior Court Judge's Richard Kramer's ruling that the laws unconstitutionally discriminate against same-sex couples.
At the same time, Lockyer said that even though he thinks gays should be allowed to get married, it would be better if the voters, not the courts, make such a sweeping social change.
"The more appropriate way to enact a change in policy that's this basic is to go to the people," Lockyer said in Washington, D.C. "This issue probably will wind up before the people in one way or another eventually."
Kramer's ruling has been stayed automatically for 60 days to allow time for appeals. Lawyers for two California groups opposed to same-sex marriage plan to appeal the ruling after March 30, the day Kramer is scheduled to make his opinion final.
"I do think people see California as being a line in the sand," Kors said. "If we can turn back this right-wing attempt to codify discrimination in California, that will spread across the country. And if we lose in California, it will be very hard for us to recover on a national basis for some time."