I am a Christian Too

Well, I’ll be darned. Look what happened in the Senate of my home state of California (emphasis mine):

California Senate votes to legalize gay marriage
Chamber is first legislative body in U.S. to approve same-sex matrimony

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The state Senate approved legislation Thursday that would legalize same-sex marriage in California, a vote that makes the chamber the first legislative body in the country to approve a gay marriage bill.

The 21-15 vote sets the stage for a showdown next week in the California Assembly, which narrowly rejected a gay marriage bill in June.

“Equality is equality, period,” said one of the bill’s supporters, Democratic Sen. Liz Figueroa. “When I leave this Legislature, I want to be able to tell my grandchildren I stood up for dignity and rights for all.”

…

The bill’s author, Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno, said he expected a vote in the Assembly on Tuesday.

“We are so very close,” he said.

Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a Republican, suggested a “higher power” was opposed to the legislation.

“This is not the right thing to do,” he said. “We should protect traditional marriage and uphold all of those values and institutions that have made our society and keep our society together today.”

But Democratic Sen. Debra Bowen said a number of churches supported the bill. “I don’t think anyone should claim God as being on their side in this debate,” she said.

After the progressive side lost the vote to relax restrictions on gay clergy in the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly, I don’t have the heart to get my hopes up that this will make it through the Assembly and get signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. (Although that would be a great dilemma for the Governator — to veto or not to veto.)

In 2000, California approved Proposition 22, stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”, by a margin of 61% to 39%. While California is heavily Democratic these days, Latino voters are pretty cool towards gay rights. Still, the UFW and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are endorsing the bill.

Think of the ramifications if it passed! Gays would be streaming to California to get married, even though their home states probably wouldn’t recognize the marriage. All of the conservative Christian televangelist and telemarketing organizations in Orange County would have to decide whether they could stand to continue to do business in California. (I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them relocated to Colorado Springs.) Think of all the conservative anti-gay protests in Sacramento, the conservative fund-raising letters, the anti-gay venom pouring from Fox News. James Dobson would declare the end of the institution of marriage in California.

This bill should be named the Bloggers Full Employment Act.

I would be pleased and proud to live in the first state in the US to legalize gay marriage.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2005 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Gays in the Church, God and Public Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.