Anti-Gay Marriage Initiative Update

As MadProfessah has been reporting for months, heterosexual supremacists are attempting to use California's initiative process to institutionalize homophobia into the state constitution. There are news reports today that the "Protect Marriage" coalition of groups has collected 1.1 million signatures to qualify a measure to ban gay marriage that would appear on the November 4 statewide ballot if they submit them before the Monday April 28th deadline and the Secretary of State agrees that at least 694,354 signatures are valid.

Although Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has already announced his opposition to the proposed initiative the political fight over a ballot measure is likely be heated and expensive.
The opponents of gay marriage were determined to get the measure approved this November because the California Supreme Court will issue a ruling about gay marriage by June 4th. There are rumors that the Court is drafting a decision that would allow same-sex couples to marry in California. If that is the case, then the November ballot measure would be voiding actual gay marriages in California.

The text of the proposed constitutional amendment is:

SECTION 1. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the"California Marriage Protection Act."

SECTION 2.
Article I, Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read:
Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

This is a slightly different version of the measure the heterosexual supremacists were circulating last summer when they were attempting to qualify a measure for the June ballot. The significant change is that they have removed the sentence "This provision shall not affect the rights, benefits and obligations conferred by California law on other domestic relationships" which makes it clear that the measure only impacts marriage and not California's landmark (and very popular) domestic partnerships statute. It also makes it identical to Proposition 22, an Initiative Statute which Californians passed in March 2000 by a vote of 62-38. Proposition 22 was better known as the Knight Initiative, since it was mainly the brainchild of State Senator Pete Knight, a virulently homophobic legislator who died in 2004. His widow, Gail Knight is one of the main sponsors of the proposed initiative.

Happily, the more restrictive anti-gay marriage initiative proposed by the homophobic extremists like Randy Thomasson at the "Campaign for Children and Families" which would not only ban gay marriage but domestic partnerships as well is unlikely to qualify.