http://www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,205%257E24512%257E2859244,00.html
Article Published: Sunday, May 08, 2005 - 7:24:39 PM PST
Gay-marriage bans up for votes in Legislature twolines
By Steve Lawrence, Associated Press
Gay- marriage opponents get their chance in the Legislature
this week, but their likelihood of success isn't great.
The judiciary committees in the Senate and Assembly will
consider constitutional amendments Tuesday that would bar
California from recognizing same-sex marriages and limit
rights and benefits given domestic partners.
The hearings come two weeks after the Assembly Judiciary
Committee approved a bill by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D- San
Francisco, to authorize same-sex unions.
State law currently defines marriage as a civil contract
between a man and a woman. Voters in 2000 also approved a
ballot measure, Proposition 22, to prevent California from
recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere.
But a San Francisco judge ruled in March that those laws
discriminate against gay couples and are unconstitutional.
That decision, which is likely to reach the state Supreme
Court, has helped fuel the drive for a constitutional
amendment banning gay marriage, although that amendment
is more likely to come from an initiative campaign than
from the Legislature.
"I hope to convince my Democratic colleagues that it's
the right thing to do,' said Assemblyman Ray Haynes, a
Murrieta Republican who is the author of one of the
constitutional amendments up this week. "But if their
past conduct is any predictor of their future behavior,
we face a rocky road ahead.'
Gay marriage opponents are planning an initiative
campaign, anticipating that the amendments by Haynes
and Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, will fail.
Besides barring gay marriages, the Haynes and Morrow
proposals could undermine some rights and benefits
given domestic partners by recently enacted laws. The
two proposals would bar giving the "rights,
responsibilities, benefits and obligations of a marriage
.... to any other union or partnership.'
"To the extent that folks wish to make domestic
partnerships substantially equal to marriage they
are undermining marriage,' Haynes contends.
Here's what else is going on at the Capitol this
week: BUDGET REVISE: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is
scheduled to release his updated state budget
proposals on Friday.
The so-called May Revise is likely to show the state
with more revenue than Schwarzenegger anticipated
when he unveiled his initial budget plans in January.
It sets the stage for negotiations over a budget for
the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Lawmakers are supposed to produce a budget plan each
year by June 15, but that's a seldom-met deadline
that contains no penalties if they miss. A budget
agreement in July or even August is more likely.
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