The Governator versus California Families

Text by Steve Kubby http://kubby2008.com/node/36; embedded links by me, “the paulienator”

[Note: This blog entry was submitted to several California newspapers for publication last week. While it addresses a "state issue," I believe that the sentiments expressed herein are also applicable to the presidential campaign]

Since his election to office, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has carefully cultivated his image as a “moderate,” plopping himself down in the muddled middle of every issue — often to the detriment of the very Californians he’s sworn to serve. In no case is that more true than with respect to issues of family and marriage.

In 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill which would have recognized same-sex marriages in California, citing an inapplicable referendum result (Proposition 22, which applied to marriages solemnized outside California and which is void due to its conflict with the US Constitution’s “Full Faith and Credit” clause). He matched that veto with a pledge to uphold the state’s current “domestic partnerships” scheme. Now he’s making the same promise again versus AB 43.

This is the “middle” that Governor Schwarzenegger stands astride: Not slavery, just segregation. Not extermination, just “second class citizenship.”

There are two sides to marriage, and neither of them are the government’s business.

On one side, we have emotional commitment expressed in a ceremony — usually, though not always, a religious ceremony. On the other, we have a standardized form of legal contract applying to the practical and legal matters arising from that commitment. The maximum extent to which the government of California has any legitimate business in these affairs is in even-handed enforcement of those contracts. Certainly it has no business peering under the clothing of the ceremony’s participants, or comparing the genitalia of the parties to the contract.

It’s a shame that AB 43 is even necessary. There should never have been any question that the job of California’s government is to respect freedom of religion and to enforce contracts, not abridge that freedom or deny the right of contract on the basis of sex. Unfortunately, the question DID arise and AB 43 IS necessary — mainly because of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger who keep scrambling for the “middle” of an issue to which there’s only one right side.

It’s time for our political leaders to stop appeasing the anti-family, anti-marriage advocates of “special treatment for homosexuals.” No, I’m not talking about those who advocate for “gay rights.” All they’re asking for is the equal treatment under the law they’ve been entitled to from the beginning.

It is the OPPONENTS of same-sex marriage who seek “special treatment for homosexuals,” and we should call that “special treatment” out for what it is: Jim Crow. Apartheid. “Separate but equal.” If anyone thinks the comparison unsound, let me remind you marriage licenses were first issued in Ohio in the 1830s, under a law intended to prohibit interracial marriages. Government regulation of marriage has ALWAYS been about catering to popular prejudice, not about any legitimate government interest in protecting rights.

There’s no “middle ground” between equal treatment under the law and the dark agenda of hate and homophobia. Time to get off the fence, Governor Schwarzenegger. Ask the legislature to pass AB 43. Then sign it and bring an end to sexual segregation in California.