Today’s letter - hate lost, now it’s time to do good

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

As you know, the California Supreme Court has decided that same-sex marriages will proceed, consistent with its ruling and the State Constitution.

In trying to convince the court to postpone the marriages until after a vote in November, the Opponents of Equality, specifically the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Campaign for California Families, claimed that “legal chaos” would result if marriage licenses were issued for six months and then blocked by a constitutional amendment. They might be right.

Well, the marriages are proceeding, and they are at risk of being overturned. If the Opponents of Equality truly want to avoid a nightmare scenario of national “legal chaos,” then it is their turn to give a little.

I think it would be sportsman-like and morally right for the Opponents of Equality to end their war against their neighbors and friends by taking the $10 million earmarked for divisive hate politics and contribute it towards healing the sick or feeding the poor. Or perhaps they could focus on the parental notification initiative that might bring a surprising number of allies from the lesbian and gay community.

Governor, please tell the Opponents of Equality – and your Republican colleagues – that fighting against the law of the land, and against California’s families, is unacceptable. Please ask them to end their support of the Constitutional Amendment to Limit Marriage.

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - will the court hear from you too?

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

When the State Supreme Court hears the marriage exclusion case on March 4, they will face an unprecedented torrent of evidence that there is nothing wrong with gay marriage, and a historic outcry for full constitutional inclusion of same-sex couples in our economy and society.

In addition to the fifteen same-sex couples, support has come from such widespread sources as:
 counties and municipalities including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Long Beach, Sacramento, and Oakland.
 legal and bar associations, including the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
 religious and civil rights leaders and organizations, including the California NAACP, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, California Council of Churches, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, and National Black Justice Coalition.

Will they hear from you?

Your support would mean a lot both to the court and my family. Tell them that California needs same-sex marriage and they need it now. It’s the least you can do to ensure the freedom of all Californians.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Focus on the Family lies

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Focus on the Family lied, and you swallowed the Kool Aide. Citizenlink.com, the activation network of Focus on the Family, repeatedly refers to Proposition 22 as a “Constitutional Amendment,” such as in this article by their Associate Editor, Jennifer Mesko:

One of the bills, AB 43, is another attempt to force same-sex “marriage” onto the residents of California. In 2000, 62 percent of voters passed a constitutional amendment that states, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

That you signed seven LGBT-positive bills this session has poor Dr. Dobson in a thither, which is nice, but all those calls you got in support of your veto were based on misinformation - that Proposition 22 was a Constitutional Amendment.

What changes this from “shame on him” to “shame on you” is that your office did nothing to correct that misinformation, choosing to use it instead as a smoke-screen for vetoing AB 43 and my relationship.

Not everybody knows the gritty details of how Proposition 22 and AB 43 pass in the dark, but you do. You could have explained that Prop 22 covers 308.5 of the Family Code dealing with foreign marriages while AB 43 restores Sections 300 and 302 to their pre-1977 traditional language, “marriage is between two persons.” But you choose to ride the Focus on the Family Wrongmobile instead.

Depriving me and my family from making the commitment of marriage is wrong, but using convenient misinformation to deny basic freedom is perhaps worse.

Yours truly,

Today’s letter - Everybody says you’ll veto, but that’s not your job

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Everybody is saying that you’ll veto AB 43, but that doesn’t make sense. Why would you veto a civil rights bill when your focus is on getting our budget in shape?

You ought to be rubber-stamping this bill, like you have with every other piece of minority-rights legislation, and pushing the responsibility to follow the will of the people back on the Legislature, where it belongs.

So I don’t believe the people who called you all sorts of names at last night’s rally. They were just bitter because they missed Power of Ten. I am confident that you will decide not to meddle with my family’s freedom and sign AB 43.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Eight Domestic Partnership Laws or One Marriage Bill

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

My California Registered Domestic Partner and I are raising our two kids here in Los Angeles. There are currently nine bills moving through the legislature that will make my family’s life better. Five of them will make California a safer place for our children, and three of them are enhancements to California’s Domestic Partnership laws that you have so wonderfully supported. But only one of them will provide us with the respect, dignity and freedom that all Californians should enjoy.

SB 105 would simplify my state taxes so we can file them as easily as straight couples. SB 559 would fix my property value that was reassessed when we moved it into our family trust. AB 102 lets us change our family name like couples do when they get married.

But AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, would make those three laws and many others unnecessary by simply ending the legislature-imposed ban on same-sex marriage.

I don’t understand why your support for families like mine ends short of supporting marriage. California deserves to have one set of rules for everybody. Please sign AB 43 and end this parade of separate laws.

Hopefully,

Today’s letter - Jersey Polls and the California People

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

It looks like a veto of the 2007 Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act (AB 43), would put you on the wrong side of the people too.

In a Zogby poll of New Jersey voters released yesterday, 63% said they would be fine with replacing civil unions with marriage, and 72% said there were more important reasons for keeping or replacing their lawmakers.

I don’t know what the numbers are for California, but I can’t imagine that the legislators who bring you AB 43 would have done it without checking the polls (unless they thought it was just the right thing to do. HA!)

I used to say sign AB 43 because it will lead the people toward equality, but it looks like the people are going there anyway. So please sign AB 43 to catch up!

Sincerely,