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New battles over gay marriage
Lisa Leff, Associated Press
September 10, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - Despite a tradition of promoting gay rights, California has long had a conflicted approach to same-sex marriage and it's one that is expected to become even more pronounced in the months ahead thanks to a pair of overlapping voter initiatives.

Fearing that courts ultimately will support the rights of gays to marry, opponents want to place before voters an initiative to amend the state Constitution so only heterosexual unions would be valid. But in typical California fashion, the initiative drive for 2006 already has grown contentious and confusing.

A rare rift among conservatives has led competing groups to promote two different gay marriage bans and begin sniping over which proposal is best. Further complicating their effort is language inserted into both petitions that would not only forbid same-sex unions, but rights associated with domestic partnerships.

Conservatives worry the infighting could be enough to doom one or both initiatives, while gay rights advocates say California voters are not likely to discard domestic partnership rights.

''There is obviously a rift in the family over which of the proposed amendments best protects marriage and protects the rights and benefits of marriage,'' said Benjamin Lopez, a lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition who tried to unite the competing groups behind one measure earlier this year. ''The situation right now is delicate.''

The confusion even within conservative camps is the latest illustration of the Golden State's to-be-or-not-to-be approach to same-sex unions.

The Legislature passed a bill last week legalizing gay marriages, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will veto it. Voters five years ago agreed through a ballot initiative that marriage should be only between a man and a woman, but that is being contested in California courts.

In the latest initiative struggle, a group called Vote Yes Marriage favors a detailed, multi-paragraph constitutional amendment. It would specify how it would rescind the steady stream of marriage-like rights lawmakers granted domestic partners during the past five years while preserving marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The other group, Protect Marriage, submitted a ballot measure that spells out similar aims in a spare 22 words: ''A marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.''

The sponsors are gathering signatures or about to start circulating petitions. They have until the end of the year to gather the 598,105 signatures needed to put the amendments on the June 2006 ballot. But they already are competing for endorsements from national fundamentalist organizations and the $1 million each estimates it needs to fund the signature-gathering efforts.

Lined up behind the concise approach are the widow and political allies of late state Sen. Pete Knight, who tirelessly crusaded against gay rights during 12 years in the Legislature.

Frustrated that fellow lawmakers would not pass a bill strengthening the state's definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, Knight in 2000 took his cause to voters.

The result was Proposition 22, which stated that ''only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.'' Since then, supporters of gay marriage have argued that it only prevented the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Meanwhile, a San Francisco trial judge, ruling in a challenge to the state's one man-one woman marriage laws, declared Proposition 22 to be an unconstitutional infringement on the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

Andrew Pugno, Knight's former chief of staff and the legal adviser to the Protect Marriage campaign, said the group's leaders want to keep the wording simple as a strategic move.

''It goes back to the fact that we believe an amendment has the strongest chance of passing if the voters can read it for themselves, because it is less vulnerable to being mischaracterized or attacked as some kind of anti-gay measure,'' Pugno said.

But backers of the Vote Yes Marriage version aren't convinced that merely inserting Proposition 22's language into the California Constitution is enough. It might keep the courts and the Legislature from bestowing marriage licenses on same-sex couples but would not necessarily do away with domestic partnerships, they argue.

''If you don't specifically protect marriage rights for marriage in your text, a judge down the road could say, 'I don't see that. I'm not going to protect marriage rights for marriage,''' said Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families. ''The people of California don't want counterfeit marriage, they don't want something that's unclear, they don't want something that would throw away marriage rights.''

Thirteen states already have constitutional bans on gay marriage. Besides California, others are expected to be on ballots next year in Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Virginia, South Dakota and Tennessee. Voters in Texas will render a decision on an amendment outlawing gay marriage this year.

The disagreement has led to an increasingly bitter war of words between the two sides. Thomasson's group, for instance, has posted on its Web site a lengthy explanation of why its initiative is ''the only true-blue marriage amendment.''

Pugno described Vote Yes Marriage's offensive as ''a sign of desperation.''

California voters have not been tested on the question of gay marriage since Proposition 22 passed with 61 percent of the vote five years ago. But a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that voters are evenly divided on the issue. Other polls have found a majority think same-sex couples deserve at least domestic partner rights.

Gay rights advocates said that by attempting to void California's domestic partner law as well as ban gay marriage, both proposed amendments might be overreaching in a way that spells their defeat. But they nevertheless are bracing for the likelihood that at least one will make the June ballot and the possibility that the second would be put before voters the following November.

''Ultimately, it wouldn't surprise me if this is a way for two different groups to raise as much money as possible and then join forces,'' said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights lobbying group Equality California. ''We are suspicious of their motivation because we know they are motivated by wanting to take away the rights of our families.''