Same Sex Marriage

In Prop 8-land, people are buzzing about this: The Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical Southern California pastor who gave the invocation at President Obama's inauguration, told Larry King last week that he didn't campaign for Prop 8, the California initiative ban on same-sex marriage. In fact, he did. In this Politico story, Warren's pr agents try to walk this one back by arguing that Warren was too tired from his Holy Week duties. Apparently, exhaustion makes one more favorable to same-sex marriage. Which suggests a strategy for the likely initiative battle to overturn Prop 8 in 2010: set off fog horns and shine bright lights in key precincts in the middle of the night.

On a more serious note, Warren's vacillation is as strong a sign as any which way the public is moving on this issue.

I was interviewed yesterday for a CBS News "The Early Show" piece on same-sex marriage that appeared this morning. With the recent legalization of such marriages in Iowa (by a unanimous Iowa state supreme court) and in Vermont (by the legislature), there is a sense of momentum around the cause of marriage equality. I'm not that optimistic. The politics even of reversing the federal ban on recognition of such marriages is too dangerous even for a Democratic Congressional majority and a Democratic president who know such a ban is wrong. And some two dozen states have bans on the books. so the process of unwinding such bans could take a decade or more, despite public opinion that is shifting in the direction of same-sex marriage.

The CBS producer asked me a good question: what would it take to speed up the process? Having more courts and legislatures in more states legalize such marriages would help, but that's a slow path. For progress, same-sex marriage supporters need to start winning ballot initiative elections and soon. In fact, I wonder if the quickest path to widespread recogntion of same-sex marriage would be to pick a big fight in a key swing state that has the initiative process.

Probably not. Iowa, where the state supreme court today found unconstitutional the state's law limiting marriage to a man and a woman, does not have statewide ballot initiatives. (The legislature actually approved direct democracy in the 1910s, but the question never made it to the people for ratification, according to the Initiative & Referendum Institute). And the process of amending the constitution is long and laborious. Legislators would have to vote for an amendment in two consecutive sessions. Then voters would have to adopt the amendment. By my calculation, the earliest that could happen would be in 2012.

A vote then would make same-sex marriage a big issue in the presidential election. But this is a powerful decision by a unanimous court (a link to the text is here); this non-lawyer read it this afternoon and found it to be more narrow and better drafted than the California Supreme Court decision (which, in addition to legalizing same-sex marriage, made gay people a protected class and discovered an unwritten right to have your family decisions respected in the state constitution).

I must confess that I thought this was an April Fool's joke. But Howard Ahmanson, longtime funder of conservative and Christian causes (including the Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage), tells the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal that he's become a Democrat.

Why? He says he couldn't stomach the California Republican Party and its narrow-minded opposition to taxes at all times and for any reason. "They're providing one issue and it's just a very silly issue," Ahmanson told the paper.

It appears that the California GOP's "heads on sticks" campaign against any Republican who would raise taxes -- even with the state staring into the fiscal abyss -- is not just irresponsible. It's costly.

One might think Gordon Brown would have better things to do (perhaps saving the world's financial capital, London, and its leading institutions) than wade into California politics. But late last week, during a reception for gay leaders at Downing Street, he criticized Prop 8, the ban on same-sex marriage, according to the BBC. "This attempt to undo good that has been done is unacceptable," Brown said.

Fine, but the UK is no better than California when it comes to same-sex marriage. Both places permit same-sex civil partnerships, but not marriages.

I filed this item as my Fox & Hounds Daily column while watching this morning's California Supreme Court hearing on the challenges to Prop 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage:

The California Supreme Court hears the challenges to Prop 8 tomorrow morning. And you may have heard that Cal Channel, which broadcasts government hearings, will show the hearing live on its web site.

But as someone who has long experience with Cal Channel, don't count on being able to access that video. Cal Channel is a small operation that is decidedly not ready for prime time. This year's State of the State address -- an essentially meaningless speech that few cared about -- was a minor disaster, with the Internet feed going in and out. It's a good bet that Cal Channel's servers will be quickly overwhelmed by interested parties. Cal Channel's web site has already posted the following warning: "Due to the high demand we expect for this event, if you have problems connecting then the server has reached its limit. Please try back later and watch the video in our archive when it concludes." D

If you want to see it, you're better off looking for it on TV (check your cable provider in California for those who have Cal Channel). Expect some cable news channels to show parts of it.

I'm out of California this week and not monitoring direct democracy with my usual fervor. The goal is to get some writing done. Sad to miss Thursday's oral arguments before the state Supreme Court on the legal challenges to Prop 8, California's same-sex marriage ban. I'll weigh in when I'm back next weekend.

Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church in East Helena, Montana, had supported a 2004 ballot initiative declaring that marriage was between a man and a woman. So state officials said the church was an "incidental campaign committee" and had to disclose its expenditures. A federal appeals court ruled this week that the state got it wrong and violated the church's First Amendment rights in the process, according to the AP.

President Clinton is scheduled to give a speech Sunday in San Diego to something called the International Franchise Association. Bad move. The location of the speech is a Hyatt hotel that has been the subject of a boycott by the No on 8 folks (that is, supporters of same-sex marriage) since the hotel's owner gave to the Yes on 8 campaign during last year's initiative campaign. The Courage Campaign, a progressive group with an an active Internet organizing operation here in California, is sending out emails and petitions urging Clinton to cancel the speech. Labor unions, which have been battling the hotel, also are boycotting.