Posted on 02/21/2004 4:37:09 PM PST by kattracks
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — He's been called a renegade and a rogue, a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party's presidential ambitions. Enemies are calling for his political head and old allies are keeping a noticeable distance.Yet what really matters to Mayor Gavin Newsom is what they're saying in the neighborhoods of San Francisco — that his decision to buck California law and grant marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples makes him a hero.
"At the end of the day I sleep well, and in life there is nothing more important than that," Newsom said Saturday during an interview at City Hall, where nearly 3,200 same-sex couples have taken vows in the last 10 days. "What matters is doing the right thing and being true to yourself and standing up on principle."
The 36-year-old mayor, who had been in office just five weeks when he effectively threw kerosene on the national debate over same-sex marriage, ordering city officials to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed. Critics have filed two lawsuits seeking to stop the unions, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said the state will also try to step in and block the marriages.
Still, Newsom said he feels "no anxiety whatsoever" about his move, which he insists was the only legal one based on his reading of the California Constitution.
"I've never felt more certain about something than this," he said. "It was almost non-debatable."
But he acknowledged that he's been surprised by the lack of support he's gotten from fellow Democrats, including longtime gay rights champions like U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and mentors such as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both San Franciscans.
"A lot of people that I believed would be quite supportive publicly were not. A lot of people I never imagined, never could conceive, on any basis, would ever support the comments, they supported (me)," Newsom said.
Then he parsed the responses he's received into one more category: "Those who privately are telling me one thing and saying another publicly."
Newsom, the scion of an old-line San Francisco political family and a graduate of the Roman Catholic Santa Clara University, said that his decision has already cost him friends and political allies, and that he doubts it will guarantee his re-election in four years.
"This is not a good political calculus, even in San Francisco," he said.
At the same time, he waved off suggestions that his actions amounted to giving Republicans the keys to the armory in their battle to keep the White House and Congress in GOP hands, or that the city's gay marriages will be the straw that convinces President Bush to back a proposed federal gay marriage ban.
"It's happening anyway," Newsom said of the role gay rights has played in national legal and political debates over the past year. "This is the tipping point."
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