CA gay marriage!?

[chicken]

In this time of Katrina/Bush-induced despair, some good news ...

California legislature passes gay marriage bill! (Via kita0610).

Let's hope Arnold doesn't veto it.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

If Schwarzenegger wants to retain any political support at all, he pretty much has to veto the bill, since his remaining salvageable base now consists of conservative die-hards who are hanging onto him because of the R after his name.

It won't be enough to save his career, of course, but I'm afraid same-sex marriage in California will have to wait for the next governor.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Ah, just the long drink of cynicism I needed to get my morning started. ;-) Sadly I'm afraid you are right. Still, this is very heartening, if that's a word.

[wicked-goddess.livejournal.com]

You've got more faith in Arnold than I do.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Well, actually I have no faith in him. He will probably veto it. My "let's hope..." statement was more of a hail Mary or something. An imprecation, rather than an expectation.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I only vaguely understand what's going on now, but apparently Schwarzenegger has passed the buck to the courts attempting to determine the constitutionality of the law in the face of some anti-gay-marriage referendum. I guess, that way, if the courts allow it he can blame it on activist judges.

[anelith.livejournal.com]

As you probably saw in the Globe this morning, Arnold says he's going to veto it. Oh well.

At least we can take heart in the fact that the CA Legislature had the votes to pass it at all. That's got to be a huge landmark.

Did you see today's articles about Reilly allowing the 2008 ballot initiative to go forward? Reading the largest article carefully, I have mixed feelings about what he did. On the one hand, it sounds as if his action even further killed the 2006 ballot initiative. Yay! Also, if he truly believes what he *says* are his reasons for permitting it to go forward, the reasons he gives seem on the face of it to be legal ones that he has to follow.

However, it seems to me that it's the kind of thing that one could find legalistic wiggle room on either side, depending on your beliefs. And we know that Reilly is anti-gay marriage. So I have a hard time believing that he didn't come down this way for political reasons.

I would have such a tough time voting for Reilly if he's the Democratic candidate. I so, so hope for Deval Patrick to win the nomination. Otherwise I'm probably going to have to hold my nose before voting for Reilly -- because I can't see myself voting for the Republican candidate right now.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Wow, I have NO idea what you are talking about. I guess I'm still a little too plugged into Rhode Island politics. I keep forgetting I live here now!

[anelith.livejournal.com]

Sorry! Don't mind me, I posted my comment when I was fresh from my usual breakfast of cereal and political chat with Ron! He usually goes off on at least one rant about the latest outrage in the Boston Globe, while I blearily scan the paper and try to get the kids fed and ready for school.

OK, here's the scoop according to Anne. No guarantees of accuracy, mind! I'll do my best to summarize the sitch as I understand it.

You probably know that the State Legislature is meeting next Wednesday to vote on whether to allow the citizens of Mass. to vote against gay marriage. That's the 2006 ballot initiative. It looks right now that it's going to fail, so yay! Ron's planning to go to the pro gay-marriage demonstration that day, and I might be able to go with him if all is hunky-dory with the kids in school.

HOWEVER, a coalition of citizens' groups petitioned Attorney General Thomas Reilly to allow yet *another* ballot initiative, this one to appear in 2008, to completely ban gay marriage and not even allow civil unions. The one currently up for 2006 would allow civil unions. The new initiative is legally controversial for a number of reasons that I find bewildering and too long to go into here, but suffice to say that many people think Reilly could legally have gone either way and he chose for political reasons to let it go forward. It now will have to garner I *think* 65,000 petition signatures in the next 60 days, then it will have to be passed by the Legislature in two separate sessions before appearing before the voters in 2008.

The temporary good news is that the moment Reilly gave the 2008 initiative the go-ahead, all the dyed-in-the-wool haters of gay marriage withdrew their support from the 2006 initiative because they also hate civil unions, so they much prefer the 2008 initiative. That means that the 2006 intiative is mostly dead in the water. It remains to be seen what will happen with the much more restrictive 2008 initiative.

But you see what I mean about not being happy with Reilly? He claims to have been legally forced to give the go-ahead to the 2008 intiative, regardless of his personal beliefs, but he is known to be anti-gay marriage. He is a Democratic candidate for governor. I much prefer the very, very liberal candidate Deval Patrick, who is a staunch supporter of gay marriage. I *love* him. Which means he is DOOMED in the primary. My candidates never win. He's also black, by the way.

But it looks like our Republican governor Romney wants to keep his options open and may still have an eye to running for governor again, as unlikely as that seems since I would have sworn his heart was set on running for President. There is no way I'd ever vote for him. It's extremely unlikely I'd vote for any Republican, in fact. So I may find myself faced with the horrible choice of voting for Reilly or some Republican. Urk.

Does that long-winded garbled mess explain it at all?

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that does help. The voting choice between Reilly and a Republican sounds like the usual "lesser of two evils" choice we've had in virtually every election at every local, state, and federal level in our voting lifetimes. Terribly depressing.