This is sad

I don't think that anyone who consistently reads this blog is all about promoting gay "marriage," but I have learned some things about the recent goings on here in California that make me sad, and I wanted to let you know about them. Just a few days ago, the California legislature approved AB849 which is a bill that would make same sex marriage legal in the state of California. I think this is sad for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is sad that a majority of elected representatives in this state would choose to call such unions marriages, which is a term that every major world religion reserves for the union of a man and a woman.

The second reason it is sad is because they chose to approve this measure in spite of the expressed will of the people. Wait, you ask, isn't the legislature the "will of the people" in our system? Great question. Here's the answer. California is the king of "ballot initiatives." Want something to be a law in California? No problem - just give it a proposition number, put it on the ballot the next time there's a statewide election, and if 51% of the people say 'yes' on it, you've got yourself a law. It turns out that, in the state of California, if something becomes a law from a ballot initiative, the only way it can no longer be a law is through another ballot initiative that expressly "undoes" the first one. This is important to the discussion at hand because on March 7th, 2000, the voters of the state of California approved Proposition 22. This proposition is essentially one sentence long. It says:


Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.


That's it. All Californians were asked to do is say 'yes' or 'no' on this. Proposition 22 passed with a 21 point margin with a large voter turnout. Here is the turnout by precinct. So, if you've been paying attention, you're asking yourself, "Ok, since Prop. 22 can only be overturned by another ballot initiative, how can the legislature pass AB849?" Another great question. The answer is as follows: open the link above to AB849 in a new window and go to Section 3, item (k). The second sentence reads as follows:

This act is in no way intended to alter Section 308.5 of the Family
Code, which prohibits California from treating as valid or otherwise
recognizing marriages of same-sex couples solemnized outside of
California.

Section 308.5 is the text of Prop. 22, as you can read in the link I provided. All of the words in item (k) after the word "which" are words which the writer of AB849 wrote to codify a completely nonsensical interpretation of Prop. 22. You see, the author of this bill knew that he couldn't just write a plain gay marriage bill because he can't get around Prop 22 without another vote. So, he decided to write all of those words after the word "which" in the above, which in a legal sense says, "Everyone who voted for Prop. 22 was talking about marriages outside of the state of California." In another, more real sense, the author of this bill is saying, "I don't give a flying rip about what the voters of this state say. This is what I'm gonna do and it's too freaking bad if what I want got defeated by a 21 point margin in a vote." That, my friends, is perhaps the more pathetic of the two reasons I am sad. There is no room here for reasonable people to come to different conclusions. To even have a discussion on whether Prop. 22, a ballot initiative in the state of California, was intended for marriages in the state of California is truly stupid. Anyone engaged in that argument should really just be truthful and admit that the basis of the argument is that one side believes that the people who voted for Prop 22 are bigots and need enlightening forced upon them and the other side does not believe such a thing. Much remains to be said about the mindset of the person that would create such machinations to have his way in the legislature, but I must leave it unsaid for now (I need the sleep).

The bill will be vetoed anyway so there won't be a long drawn-out court battle over this, which I guess is good. I just hope that the authors of AB849 are held accountable at the polls next election cycle.