To no one's surprise, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger kept his word last week and vetoed the historic gender-neutral marriage bill. We wrote in this space several weeks ago about how the governor just doesn't get it, and wasted a golden opportunity to show true leadership and courage in a state where more and more voters are taking a second look at the same-sex marriage issue and supporting it. But the governor, with his low poll numbers, is desperate to get his initiatives passed in next month's special election, and brazenly caved in to the right-wingers, conveniently giving them a reason not to stay home on Election Day.
We shouldn't stay home on Election Day either, for the opposite reason; but we'll have more on that next week. For now, our focus is on Schwarzenegger's veto action.
Specifically, now that the governor has vetoed the marriage bill, he needs to keep his word on his stated support for domestic partner rights, as he himself reiterated in his veto message.
"I am proud California is a leader in recognizing and respecting domestic partnerships and the equal rights of domestic partners," Schwarzenegger stated. "I believe that lesbian and gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against based upon their relationships. I support current domestic partnership rights and will continue to vigorously defend and enforce these rights and as such will not support any rollback."
What this means, to us at least, is that the governor should come out against the proposed antigay initiatives headed for the June 2006 ballot because it would do just that – repeal existing domestic partner rights for California's same-sex couples, as well as ban same-sex marriage. Schwarzenegger should do this immediately, even as proponents of one of the initiatives are gathering signatures to qualify for the ballot. He must use the power of his office to tell state residents that discrimination is wrong, and that he concurs with the majority of voters who support domestic partner rights.
And gay rights leaders agree.
"We do recognize and appreciate that the governor stated he did not support current efforts to roll back domestic partner protections, but that is not enough," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "He must use the full force of his office to fight any such attempts."
We can see nationally that the effort to keep us marginalized goes unabated. Just this week, some conservatives went apoplectic when it was reported that Harriet Miers, President Bush's latest nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, stated that she was in support of equal rights for gays and lesbians when she ran successfully for a seat on the Dallas City Council years ago. While that tells us nothing about how Miers would rule in such cases should she be confirmed (and in fact she did not support repeal of the Texas sodomy law that was overturned by the high court two years ago), even her modest statement decades ago is too much for those on the extreme right.
Schwarzenegger's veto of the marriage bill does not mean that fundies here will abandon their efforts to put the antigay initiatives on the state ballot next year. They are just as antigay now as they were before. The governor's words of support for domestic partner rights in his veto message are of little consequence unless he backs up his statement with forceful opposition.
He needs to go beyond what he said in his veto message and specifically oppose these horrible, homophobic initiatives. And the sooner he does that, the better.