Invalidating the Voters

I am sick and tired of our Legislature ignoring the spoken will of the California voters. We voted on this issue with Proposition 22 and 61.2% of the voter said no to gay marriage in California! Obviously our elected officials at the Capitol think we are not intelligent enough to decide this issue; even when we send a resounding message with 60% of the vote they still do not listen. I have had it with our elected officials in Sacramento; not content enough with bankrupting this state financial, now they feel the need to cirumvent us and bankrupt us socially! I call on Governor Schwarzenegger to veto this and respect will of your constituency. Do not invalidate my vote! The text below was posted on SacBee.com!

California Senate approves bill allowing gay marriage
By STEVE LAWRENCE, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 1:10 pm PDT Thursday, September 1, 2005
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Handing gay rights advocates a major victory, the California Senate approved legislation Thursday that would legalize same-sex marriages in the nation's most populous state.
The 21-15 vote made the Senate the first legislative chamber in the country to approve a gay marriage bill. It sets the stage for a showdown in the state Assembly, which narrowly rejected a gay marriage bill in June.


"Equality is equality, period," said one of the bill's supporters, Sen. Liz Figueroa, D-Sunol. "When I leave this Legislature, I want to be able to tell my grandchildren I stood up for dignity and rights for all."
But Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-La Mesa, suggested that a "higher power" opposed the legislation.

"This is not the right thing to do," he said. "We should protect traditional marriage and hold all of those values and institutions that have made our society and keep our society together today."

But Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, said a number of churches supported the bill: "I don't think anyone should claim God as being on their side in this debate," she said.

California already confers many of the rights and duties of marriage on gay couples, who can register as domestic partners. Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay marriages when the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex weddings there in 2003.

Several senators equated the struggle for gay marriage to other civil rights movements. They said arguments against the bill were similar to earlier arguments in support of slavery and opposing interracial marriage.

"This is probably the most profound civil rights movement of our generation, without a doubt," said Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough.

Gay rights advocates called Thursday's California vote historic.

"It will make all California families safer and more secure if it becomes law," said Seth Kilbourn, director of the Human Rights Campaign Marriage Project in New York. "The fact they debated and voted on this relatively quickly today sends a message that there is momentum for this bill."

Senate approval gave the bill's author, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, another chance to send the legislation to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Legislature is expected to adjourn next week.

A telephone call seeking comment from the governor's office was not immediately returned Thursday.

After the Assembly rejected his bill in June by four votes, Leno amended the measure's provisions into another one of his bills that had already passed the Assembly and was awaiting action in the Senate. That's the bill the Senate approved Thursday and sent back to the Assembly.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, one of six gay members of the state Legislature, told the chamber that gay couples have the same hopes for their relationships as heterosexual couples.

"Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens," said Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. "This is a bill whose time has come."

The vote came as a state appellate court is considering appeals of a San Francisco judge's ruling overturning California laws banning recognition of gay marriages. At the same time, opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to qualify initiatives for the 2006 ballot that would place a ban on gay marriages in the state Constitution.

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, agreed that gay couples are entitled to certain rights but not the right to marry.

"Can't you see that marriage is a fundamentally different institution?" he said. "Marriage is the institution by which we propagate our species and inculcate our young."