Note to readers: This actually appeared on our site earlier. But since we have many posts on Katria TMV decided to move this up higher so other issues aren’t lost in the shuffle. (Scroll down for some more recent Katrina-related posts).
The California Assembly has followed through with the state Senate’s move to expand the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples, reports the Los Angeles Times‘ Nancy Vogel. And although this measure is still one critical step away from becoming a law — it needs Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature, which he is poised not to affix — this does appear to be a big moment for America’s homosexuals, as indicated in Vogel’s lede.
The California Legislature made history Tuesday as the Assembly passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.
With no votes to spare, California’s lawmakers became the first in the United States to act without a court order to sanction gay marriages. The measure was approved after three Democratic lawmakers who abstained on a similar proposal that failed in June changed their minds under intense lobbying by bill author Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and gay and civil rights activists.
No Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Forty-one of the Assembly’s 47 Democrats voted yes; four Democrats voted “no,” and two abstained.
The bill, which would change California’s legal definition of marriage from “a civil contract between a man and a woman” to a “civil contract between two persons,” now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has signaled that he will veto it.
At a time when Schwarzenegger’s approval still sits in the mid-30s, according to the most recent Field Poll, and the Governor still trails two relatively unknown Democrats, State Treasurer Phil Angelides and State Controller Steve Westly, it is unclear whether this seeming shift to the right on social issues will help or hinder his chances at reelection.
Aside from the political ramifications, this issue clearly brings up many moral and ethical ones as well. Do you think the California legislature went about this the right way? Did the Senate and Assembly come up with the right conclusion on the issue?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.