Posted on 07/08/2009 9:17:07 PM PDT by Fred
The California Legislature is getting back into the Proposition 8 fight with a bill that would recognize possibly thousands of same-sex marriages performed outside of California before the measure was passed.
SB 54 , introduced late last week by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, also would ensure that gay and lesbian couples who have married in other states or countries since Nov. 5 -- when Prop 8 became official -- receive all the rights and obligations opposite-sex California couples enjoy, with the exception of the designation of "marriage."
The bill faces its first test today in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which is dominated by Democrats. It already has generated opposition from two conservative groups, the California Catholic Conference and the Capitol Resource Institute.
"This bill is a direct effort to undercut what the voters did on Nov. 5, 2008," Karen England, executive director of CRI, which defends "family-friendly policies" in California, said in an e-mail alert sent out Monday.
Leno called that a complete misreading of SB 54. All he's doing, he said Monday, is trying to put into state statutes the language of the California Supreme Court's May 26 ruling in Strauss v. Horton (pdf), 46 Cal.4th 364, which said Prop 8 isn't retroactive and that the only exception to equal protection for same-sex couples is the use of the word "marriage."
"This is, in the strictest terms, merely codifying the Supreme Court decision," Leno said. "We don't interpret. We don't extrapolate. We don't extend. We just place in statute what the court said in the majority opinion."
The California Supreme Court explicitly declined in Strauss to decide the fate of out-of-state marriages that were performed while same-sex marriage was legal in California, saying that the question was not properly before the court.
Although Prop 8 is a constitutional amendment, Leno argued that adding statutory language shouldn't pose any problem because his legislation isn't trying to undo the controversial ballot measure.
Gay rights lawyers and family law attorneys think Leno's on the right track. Some have worried in recent weeks that the Supreme Court left thousands of couples in limbo.
"People are just coming out of the woodwork who actually did believe their marriages had been invalidated," San Francisco family lawyer Deborah Wald said.
Many California same-sex couples married in other states, assuming their licenses would be portable. And couples who have married in other locales before or after Nov. 5 worry their nuptials won't be recognized if they move here.
"It's a good idea [for legislators] to take the bull by the horns" and "create some clarity," San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart said Tuesday.
"Now, do they have the final word?" she added. "Obviously, anybody can sue anybody over anything."
Courtney Joslin, an acting professor of law at UC-Davis School of Law, said Leno's bill is "entirely consistent" with her reading of Strauss.
"The people did not express any attempt to have Prop 8 applied retroactively to in-state or out-of-state marriages," she said, "and that should be the end of the question."
Jesse Choper, a constitutional law expert at UC-Berkeley School of Law, said that would seem reasonable. "If the Legislature wants to say that same-sex marriages performed legally outside the state of California shall be recognized in California, then it would seem that's a fair statute to pass," he said. "The California Supreme Court can always come back and say, no, by constitutional amendment they are not valid anymore."
But Carol Hogan, pastoral projects and communications director of the Sacramento-based California Catholic Conference, doesn't agree. The Supreme Court didn't address out-of-state marriages, she said Tuesday, adding that Leno's bill is an obvious attempt to undermine the will of the people.
"If you can read plain English," she said Tuesday, "it sounds to me like [same-sex marriages] are not valid and recognized."
Hogan's organization sent a letter to Leno last week criticizing him for using the so-called "gut and amend" process to turn SB 54 -- which began as a health care pricing bill -- into Prop 8-related legislation. The group called it "an evasion of the full deliberate process" that "will preclude a full review."
The conference's letter said the effort "to recognize more same-sex 'marriages' is unnecessary -- and divisive -- as domestic partnerships in California offer individuals exactly the same rights and benefits that marriage does."
Leno said he expects the bill to be headed to the governor's desk by late August. He anticipates a party-line vote in the Assembly and Senate.
"Inequality is a messy business," he said, "and in many ways this [Supreme] court has created some messes we're trying to clean up. Equality is cleaner and simpler."
www.protectmarriage.com
As if the Legislature doesn’t have enough issues to deal with given the chronic $26 billion state budget deficit, some legislators are advancing a new bill in Sacramento designed to rip a huge hole in Proposition 8 and further undercut traditional marriage in California.
We need your help immediately to contact legislators and the Governor to oppose Senate Bill 54, which seeks to undermine Proposition 8, and further attempts to sneak this change by the people of California through a legislative maneuver known as the “gut and amend.”
Last week, Senator Mark Leno stripped out the contents of SB 54 – dealing with health care coverage -- and inserted language that would legalize gay marriages performed in other states and nations prior to the passage of Proposition 8. This proposal is in direct conflict with California’s constitution – as amended by the passage of Proposition 8 – that provides only marriage between a man and a woman will be valid or recognized in California. Further, it goes well beyond the California Supreme Court’s decision that allowed to remain valid a limited number of same-sex marriages performed in California last summer before Proposition 8 passed.
It is simply wrong and undemocratic for liberal gay activists like Senator Mark Leno to attempt to circumvent the decision of voters and rewrite our constitution behind our backs with this sneaky “gut and amend” maneuver. That’s why we’re asking you to take action TODAY and urge the legislature, and if it gets to him, the Governor, to oppose this effort to undermine Proposition 8.
We’ve told you before about our new coalition, the Protect Marriage Action Fund, and opposing legislation like SB 54 is the kind of aggressive advocacy the Action Fund is undertaking to mount a wide-ranging defense of traditional marriage in our state.
Please become an active supporter by opposing SB 54.
And if you can, please consider making a donation to the Protect Marriage Action Fund by clicking here. Your contribution will be used to help bring on and train field organizers, fund communications with the public and the media and ensure that citizens learn more about the many benefits that traditional marriage has provided to our society.
We pledge to call on you to take action sparingly, only when your action can make a difference, and when there is a direct assault on marriage and Proposition 8. Senator Leno’s SB 54 is such a direct assault, and your action will make a difference.
SB 54 will be heard THURSDAY in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. While the odds of stopping the bill here are low, we think that applying pressure now will drive up more no votes on this bill, which helps increase the odds of the Governor vetoing the bill. If the bill makes it to his desk, we are ultimately looking at an effort designed to encourage Governor Schwarzenegger to veto this legislation.
But for now, the fight is in the State Assembly!
Write your state Assembly representative expressing your opposition to SB 54. Ask him or her to vote against SB 54 if it makes it to the Assembly floor.
In particular, if any of the following members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee represent your home area, please call or email them immediately to urge them to oppose SB 54. Your immediate action will send a clear message that Californians are watching and will not sit idly by while liberal legislators attempt to rip a huge hole in Proposition 8.
Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D – West LA, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood) Assemblymember.feuer@assembly.ca.gov (310) 285-5490
Assembly Member Van Tran (R – Costa Mesa, Garden Grove) Trish.zanella@asm.ca.gov (714) 668-2100
Assembly Member Julia Brownley (D - Calabasas, Oxnard) Assemblymember.Brownley@assembly.ca.gov (818) 596-4141
Assembly Member Noreen Evans (D – Santa Rose, Napa) Assemblymember.evans@assembly.ca.gov (707) 546-4500
Assembly Member Dave Jones (D – Sacramento) Assemblymember.jones@assembly.ca.gov (916) 324-4676
Assembly Member Steve Knight (R – Palmdale, Victorville) Assemblymember.knight@asm.ca.gov (661) 267-7636
Assembly Member Paul Krekorian (D – Burbank) Assemblymember.krekorian@assembly.ca.gov (818) 558-3043
Assembly Member Ted Lieu (D – El Segundo) Assemblymember.lieu@assembly.ca.gov (310) 615-3515
Assembly Member William Monning (D – Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel) Assemblymember.monning@assembly.ca.gov (831) 425-1503
Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R – Redding, Yuba City) Assemblymember.nielsen@assembly.ca.gov 530-223-6300
Please take action today, and may God bless you and your family!
Sincerely,
Ron Prentice, Executive Director ProtectMarriage.com
To the leftists, obfuscation and distortion of plain language is a way of life. This was totally unnecessary in American thought and life 40 years ago. I guess you now have to anticipate every possible permutation of possibilities even vaguely relating to a law before getting it enacted. Every law will have to be the size of a full volume of encyclopedias.
The state is imploding and they waste time and money on bullship like this.
Is the tar boiling temperature yet?
These politicians are goofy. I do not think they really understand what is happening to CA.
The previous law on marriage in California was Proposition 22, which was just a regular statute law, not a constitutional amendment. It also defined marriage as a man and a woman.
During previous debates on marriage, the gay activists said that Proposition 22 only explicitly banned out of state same sex marriage, because it was amending the part of the Calif. family code that dealt with recognition of out of state marriage. Now they are arguing the opposite by saying that Proposition 8 is only dealing with in state marriage, but that now the state is free to recognize out of state homosexual marriage?????
They can’t have it both ways can they? Yes I agree these leftists and gay activists just want to litigate and obfuscate and try to find any possible permutation in the law to get what they want.
It’s beyond me how the state of Calif. can recognize out of state homosexual marriage when they have an amendment defining marriage.
What's great about California is that another initiative can address this "retroactivity" thing.
Hmmmm. Let’s see California has a $26 Billion budget whole, sending out IOU’s to pay bills. The Supreme Court of California ruled 6-1 that Prop 8 was Constitutional.
It’s not an accident that this and Massachusetts filed their challenge to the Clinton era Defense of Marriage Act comes on the same day.
Liberals are not really into “rule of law”.
Sadly, he is making life difficult for the majority of gay couples in SF who are perfectly satisfied with domestic partnerships. I had several of those couples as neighbors; they didn't "flamboy" and just want wanted to live a quiet life. Leno and the activist fringe supporting him are about political power and punishing those that disagree with them. What is hard to understand is why San Franciscans, a majority of whom is still straight, keep voting this radical back into office.
WOW!
CA has NO MONEY for anything, but they have money for this?
Loons does not even begin to describe them.
Good.
Maybe all the deviants on the planet will congregate there then the "Big One" will hit and put us all out of our misery. If only we could find a way of moving Capitol Hill to San Fransisco?
Incredible. Absolutely friggin incredible.
And before anyone tries to lay the blame on the legislators let's remember who voted them into office. Every single citizen in the state of California is to blame for what is happening to their state.
Another Godly principle states, "you reap what you sow."
JMHO
Liberalism trumps everything, apparently.
The people who support homosexual marriage tend to be very very liberal. To them this is the biggest civil rights issue of our time, and budget problems pale in comparison to the “inequality” when a female can’t marry another female.
The irony about Calif. and marriage is that Calif. allows domestic partnerships, which have virtually all the rights and responsbilities of marriage. Neither everday life or legal status for Calif. same-sex couples changed with Proposition 8. The whole debate is about the use of the word “marriage”.
I’ve often wondered why homosexual activists are working so hard to force marriage into some states, when 40 states in this country have no legal status at all for same sex couples. It’s like they totally ignore these other states.
FWIW, we have some “lesbian” family friends who live in Mississippi. Mississippi passed their marriage amendment with 86% of the vote. Our family friends there say life is fine in Mississippi, that they don’t feel opprossed or a lack of legal and social rights. So that makes me wonder, how much of the “gay” agenda is activists pushing as far as they can, vs. how much is really addressing inequities or real discrimination in the law.
Note that “Traditional Marriage” has been replaced with the negative connotative “Opposite Sex” marriage label.
You gotta wonder why Barney Frank keeps getting reelected by a constituency with so many Catholics. I think in areas dominated by political machines the majority votes by rote or sample ballots pre-marked for them.
How can California be pushed over the ecconomic tipping point of collapse?
If it goes past the tipping point of no return and their government collapses, then perhaps this recreational sex nonsense can be pulled off their radar.
bttt
over 50% of CA is conservative, its as misrepresented as the federal government "you" voted in
we voted gay marriage out twice already , impeached the rotten liberal RINO governor, and Schwartzenegger stands alone trying to keep taxes down, that's why there is still no budget, arnold vetos every tax hike
how about an apology for you ignorant ill-informed comments
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