No twosomeis too gruesome
for Newsome!
Not mine. Heard this on Mike Savage's show from a caller.
Posted on 02/27/2004 9:49:10 AM PST by Indy Pendance
Local officials say they won’t — or can’t — follow San Francisco’s lead
More than 3,200 couples have been married in San Francisco since Mayor Gavin Newsom instructed city clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples two weeks ago. While local officials around the country, including Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley, have expressed tentative support for the idea of issuing gay marriage licenses, officials in the Washington area say they have no plans to take Newsom’s approach.
Tony Bullock, communications director to District Mayor Anthony Williams, said that his office will not follow San Francisco’s lead and begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses; instead he highlighted the city’s domestic partnership program as a sign of progress.
“We don’t want to upset what’s working well with the domestic partnership program we have working here in the District,” Bullock said. “That was subjected to a 10-year delay due to congressional interference. We are in a very unique situation in America being subjected to congressional whim. We don’t want to do something that will set us back by rekindling the debate on domestic partner provisions for the District government.”
Bullock added that the mayor’s office is not seeing a large number of people “asking for more than what is already available.”
“[Domestic partnership] is a government acknowledgment of these two people and it confers all the legal rights and benefits,” Bullock said. “It’s working well and we plan on leaving it the way it is for now. That’s the consensus of the mayor.”
The D.C. domestic partner program provides only eight rights and responsibilities of the 212 benefits of marriage identified by the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington.
Raquel Guillory, press secretary for Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, said that the mayor’s gay and lesbian task force discussed the idea of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples but said they were awaiting the outcome of events in San Francisco and Massachusetts before proceeding.
“There was no recommendation to the mayor, but the matter was discussed,” Guillory said.
Guillory added that O’Malley would not be able to issue marriage licenses because they are administered by the clerk of the circuit court, which is overseen by the administration of Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich. Ehrlich has said he opposes gay marriage.
Gay Arlington County Board member Jay Fisette (D) said he has not heard of any plans for Arlington to issue gay marriage licenses.
And Beth Temple, an aide to Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille, said that the mayor’s office does not have the authority to grant such licenses since it is a state matter.
“Such a matter has to go through the legislature,” Temple said.
San Francisco debate heats up
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the debate over same-sex marriage is intensifying, following President Bush’s announcement that he supports a federal marriage amendment banning gay marriage.
Last Friday, San Francisco filed a suit against the state charging that Proposition 22, the popular 2000 initiative that a majority of Californians passed defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, violates the California Constitution.
And Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he will ask the state’s high court whether San Francisco’s issuing of same-sex marriage licenses violates state law.
“The people of California who have enacted laws that recognize marriage only between a man and a woman, and the same-sex couples who were provided marriage licenses in San Francisco deserve a speedy resolution to the question of the legality of these licenses,” Lockyer said late Monday.
The Supreme Court is not required to take either case and could wait until the lower courts issue rulings in the matter.
Several social conservative groups filed lawsuits in lower courts but two judges refused to halt the wedding spree. The next hearing in those cases is scheduled for March and, for now, the marriages continue.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday and reaffirmed his opposition to the gay marriages that are taking place in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of Meet the Press)
Political strategists say that Lockyer, a Democrat, was muscled into the gay marriage debate by Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fired off a fax last Friday night to the home of a Lockyer aide in which he wrote that the actions of San Francisco’s mayor presented “an imminent risk to civil order.”
Lockyer, who is a possible Democratic challenger for governor in 2006, rebuffed Schwarzenegger’s directives and said last Saturday that the governor’s statement was “designed for consumption at the Republican convention.”
Lockyer’s predecessor, Dan Lungren, a Republican now running for a congressional seat, criticized Lockyer’s initial reluctance to get involved.
“I would have gone directly to court and put the full weight of the state to stop this,” Lungren said Tuesday. “Bill Lockyer needs to step up to the plate and defend the law. We need to have an attorney general who isn’t fighting with one or two hands tied behind his back.”
Republican activists who helped place the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis on the ballot last year announced Tuesday they would seek to recall Lockyer because of the perception he has “neglected his duty” to enforce state laws governing marriage.
Lockyer officials dismissed the threat of a recall, calling it “politically inspired.”
Arnold meets the press
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” this week, Schwarzenegger reiterated his position that Mayor Newsom was breaking the law by handing out same-sex marriage licenses.
Moderator Tim Russert asked Schwarzenegger if he would support gay state Assemblyman Mark Leno’s proposed legislation legalizing gay marriage, and Schwarzenegger said he would not “deal with hypotheticals.”
Jeff Bissiri, chair of the Log Cabin Republican club of California, said that while his group supports civil marriage equality, he criticized Newsom’s actions in San Francisco saying that they “feed into the fear mongering that goes on by opponents of gay rights.
“Massachusetts was enough [for many opponents],” Bissiri said. “We are going through the legal process in that state to get gay marriage. That was pro-active enough. San Francisco went outside of that. Suppose the other side starts doing something similar. We may end up with a city that decides we won’t have any domestic partnership benefits.”
Newsom, a former wine and restaurant entrepreneur, defended his decision to issue same-sex marriage licenses and told CNN that denying gay couples the freedom to marry “is wrong and inconsistent with the values this country holds dear.”
San Francisco State political science professor Richard DeLeon said that prior to issuing gay marriage licenses, many voters viewed Newsom as a moderate or conservative and were astonished, positively, by his approach to gay marriage.
“He made no secret of his support for gay rights, which is a non-issue in San Francisco, but the boldness and timing of it, is amazing,” DeLeon said. “There’s one sense in having someone like Newsom start this controversy and make the leading Democratic candidates a bit more moderate. Communities are now acceding to the demand of civil unions as a better alternative.”
Bissiri agreed and added that he interpreted President Bush’s gay marriage address on Tuesday to mean that he is against gay marriage but for civil unions or domestic partnerships, like the leading Democratic presidential candidates.
“It seems to me the parties are converging on gay rights,” Bissiri said. “It’s stunning how the middle ground on gay rights has shifted. It’s now the middle ground that everyone is on. That’s a huge lurch in our direction.”
Democrats challenge Newsom
To Newsom’s surprise, his actions to issue same-sex marriage licenses have come under fire by fellow Democrats, notably California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
Boxer, who is up for re-election this fall, said that she supports the state’s current domestic partnership law, calling it “a very good, workable law.”
And Feinstein, who is not up for re-election this year, echoed Boxer’s sentiments.
“If the mayor believes that law is unconstitutional, the place to go is the court,” Feinstein told the Los Angeles Times.
DeLeon said that political activists were not surprised by Feinstein’s comments, noting that when she was mayor of San Francisco, many viewed her as “Republican lite,” since she was hostile to initial domestic partnership efforts and refused to march in the city’s annual gay pride parade. Boxer’s stance, on the other hand, left many confused.
But Newsom received a major boost of support from Art Torres, chair of the California Democratic Party, who told the Blade that he fully supports Newsom’s actions.
“It’s called civil disobedience,” Torres said. “I’m glad the mayor put it on the fast track and the president has done Newsom a favor by shifting the debate to the Federal Marriage Amendment when it appears that members of his own party point to a reluctance of leaders in the House to move this quickly or at all.”
Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, told the Boston Globe that he worries that the renegade actions taken by Newsom in San Francisco could generate more support to amend both the Massachusetts and U.S. constitutions.
“I do not want to see support for it to grow,” Frank said of the federal amendment. “The big question is, if people become convinced that it will bring to their states what happens in Massachusetts, we’re in trouble. Suppose other liberal cities do this, like Ann Arbor, Mich. If a dozen cities do this, it would make people nervous without any real possibility for gain.”
I hate to break this to them, but those licenses are as valid as a frat boy's ID.
No twosomeNot mine. Heard this on Mike Savage's show from a caller.
I believe we discussed this the other day and came up with a whopping 2 rights/privelages of marriage.
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