Gay Marriage Bill Expected to Die in Assembly

SACRAMENTO —  As attention turns this week to marriages for gays and lesbians in Massachusetts, Democratic lawmakers in California who back the concept have all but abandoned their efforts -- for now.

Election-year politics and the skittishness of a handful of Assembly members is stalling a measure to grant marriage rights to same-gender couples. Some lawmakers say they would rather wait until cases pending in the California courts are resolved.

This week, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) is expected to announce his support -- in 2005 -- for a bill legalizing unions for gays and lesbians. But he is allowing the issue to die this year, postponing one of the only legislative efforts in the nation on the issue.

“We’re disappointed the leadership hasn’t made this a priority bill,” said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, who helped draft this year’s legislation. “On the other hand, we appreciate that the leadership has done more to move this forward than in any other state legislature in the country.”

Gay rights groups view the California legislation as part of a strategy that emerged when San Francisco began granting marriage licenses three months ago. Now, court cases are pending in New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, New York and California, and a federal constitutional amendment is up for debate in Washington, D.C.

Gay and lesbian activists believe that the public, while still skeptical, is slowly embracing the concept of marriage for same-sex couples. A recent Los Angeles Times poll showed that slightly less than a third of Californians favored expanding marriage, compared with a fourth of U.S. residents in a national poll last month.

“It’s a public conversation in all those arenas,” said Jennifer Pizer, senior staff attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Los Angeles. “In California, we have the particularly poignant example of couples who married in San Francisco. We have the Legislature doing its job and public opinion moving steadily toward equality.”

The California Supreme Court is expected to hear debate next week on whether San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had the right to issue marriage licenses to more than 4,000 gay and lesbian couples in February and March. Cases also are pending in Superior Court in San Francisco that are expected to address broader constitutional issues.

The legal issues across the country are similar to those in Massachusetts -- whether denying marriage to gay and lesbian couples creates “second-class citizens,” whether same-sex marriages can be recognized across state lines and whether there is a fundamental right to marriage itself.

Conservative groups in California say they feel under assault by activist judges in other states and liberal Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento who they say are trying to subvert Proposition 22, a successful ballot initiative in 2000 that defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman.

“It seems to be just something in the drinking water that is happening everywhere,” said Carol Hogan with the California Catholic Conference, the public policy lobbying arm of the church.

Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, said state lawmakers want to inflict “sexual and judicial tyranny” on voters by redefining marriage.

“The threat for California is not Massachusetts; the threat is from inside this building right here,” said Thomasson, pointing toward the Capitol, “from some corrupt politicians who do not know the meaning of democracy or the meaning of upholding the vote of the people.”

The California bill to legalize marriage for gays and lesbians, AB 1967, was approved April 20 by the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Supporters said it was the first time any legislative body in the nation had advanced a bill granting full marriage rights to same-gender couples.

But the measure stalled in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where it has been put in official limbo. It is expected to stay there, effectively killing it this week without a vote of the full Assembly.

The bill’s author, Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), said that if the bill ends up dying this year, “it will get new life in December, the beginning of the next session, with even greater strength.”

Some gay rights groups would rather not wait until then.