ARTICLES

Ain't It Gay?

How Pro-Family Forces Lost in the Legislature

BY BILL MAY

It was Friday, June 3, and pro-family forces in and out of the state capitol were celebrating a rare victory.

The previous evening, the assembly had voted down the bill by homosexual Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) to legalize same sex "marriage." There were two votes taken on the measure that day. The first one saw the bill go down by a vote of 35–37. Then Leno asked for and was granted "reconsideration," the possibility for a second vote on a bill.

With his second shot, on June 3, Leno picked up two more votes from people who had previously abstained. One was Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk), a Catholic and Knight of Columbus. The other was Assemblyman Alberto Torrico (D-Newark), known for being one of the few born-again Christians in the Democrat caucus. In the next day's papers, Torricio was quoted as saying, "Jesus says to everyone: Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's. So, as I look at [Leno's bill], it does not force any church to marry anyone they don't want to marry."

One interesting abstention on the second vote was Mervyn Dymally, who represents a large portion of South Central Los Angeles. Same-sex unions are not at all popular in that community. But Dymally is something of an icon. He was a state senator in the 1960s, California's first black politician to win a statewide election when he became lieutenant governor in the 1970s, and a longtime congressman. And he will tell you that one of his finest legislative moments was when he, as lieutenant governor, cast the tie-breaking vote to decriminalize sodomy. Leno needed his "aye" vote. But sources inside the Democrat Caucus said that when the second vote on Leno's bill took place on June 3, Dymally didn't just abstain, he was out of the building without any way of contacting him.

In the weeks after the votes, it was strongly rumored Leno would do a "gut and amend," a process in which a measure that has passed one house of the legislature (either the assembly or the senate) is "gutted" or totally stripped of its language and then amended with completely new language.

Some people thought it was a sure bet Leno would do this. Others had doubts. Senate President Don Perata (D-Oakland) was supposedly upset with Patty Berg (D-Santa Rosa) and Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) for doing a gut and amend to get their assisted suicide measure into the state senate. He reportedly told them, "look, if you didn't have the votes to get it out of your own house, what business do you have bringing it into mine?" It was thought that maybe the same "wisdom" might prevail with Leno's bill.

But it didn't. Though the gut and amend maneuver is supposed to be for a bill that is "substantially similar" to the measure being gutted, Leno, on June 28, amended Berg's AB 849 -- a bill about fish research. It was a brilliant move on Leno's part. The state senate is a much more reliably liberal body than the assembly. There are two, maybe three, "moderates" in the Democrat Caucus.

Pro-family forces looked at the numbers. Unless they could persuade a handful of people in the senate, they were lost. They knew Dean Florez (D-Shafter) would never vote "aye." Senator Mike Machado (D-Linden) wants to run for Congress against Representative Richard Pombo, and he couldn't win that Central Valley seat if he voted for this. But what about Senator Nell Soto? Ed Vincent? If pro-family activists could get those two to abstain, they would only need one vote to prevent the bill from passing. But who? Debra Bowen? Elaine Alquist? No, they knew that, absent a miracle, the bill would get out of the senate. That was somewhat demoralizing, since it meant momentum for AB 849 and at least a moral victory for its supporters.

Pro-family forces quickly convened a meeting of the major players to map out their strategy.

They decided to concentrate on the assembly. They looked at those Democrats who had abstained [Dymally, Jerome Horton (D-Los Angeles), Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino), Simon Salinas (D-Salinas), and Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove)] and those who had voted no [Barbara Matthews (D-Stockton), Nicole Parra (D-Bakersfield), Juan Arambula (D-Fresno), Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), and Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino)]. Of the noes, the pro-family activists thought they could still count on the Central Valley members for any number of reasons. As for Vargas, a former Jesuit seminarian and a candidate for Congress, although he has a generally atrocious voting record on social issues, such as abortion and stem-cell research, he is reliable on same sex marriage. Baca is running against Negrete McLeod to succeed term-limited state senator Nell Soto in a heavily Hispanic area that doesn't suffer the notion of same sex unions lightly.

So pro-family forces focused their attention on the Democrat abstentions. They didn't think Negrete McLeod would vote for this for the above-mentioned reason. The problem is that the last person with whom she speaks often influences her position.

Simon Salinas represents a heavily agricultural, heavily Hispanic, and thus more socially conservative coastal farming district. He also wants to run against Republican state senator Jeff Denham. Pro-family activists didn't think they had to worry about him too much. They were also told he didn't agree with homosexual unions, although his exact position was a mystery.

Umberg, a Catholic, was a question mark. He represents a portion of Orange County, which, while largely Democratic, is heavily white blue collar, Hispanic, and East Asian -- not constituencies that favor homosexual unions by and large. He wants to succeed Senator Joe Dunn in a district where the registration margin between Democrats and Republicans has slipped to 41–37. Would he say to potential voters, "I share your values. I, too, value marriage. In fact, I value it so much, I voted to change the only definition of marriage ever known."

Complicating matters, however, was the fact of Dunn's last primary, which he won by 200-plus votes, and many agree it was because homosexual groups made a large effort to walk precincts and make phone calls for him. They were angry he had "betrayed" them by abstaining on AB 19. Then again, if he voted for it, he likely assured himself a primary challenge from former assemblyman and current Orange County supervisor Lou Correa. And up-and-coming GOP hotshot Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Garden Grove), the nation's first Vietnamese elected state official in a heavily Vietnamese area, would likely challenge Umberg if he voted for this, all but assuring the end of his political career.

Then there was Horton. Horton is known as Mr. Abstention. He says abstaining gives him an air of mystery because people never know what he's going to do. He says it keeps him "in the game." A Democratic insider told us he has no use for homosexual unions.

Another insider has said Dymally did not want to vote for this bill and was looking for an excuse to vote against it.

Based on this information, the pro-family forces devised a strategy. They would contact those who were likely noes or abstentions, thank them for their previous vote, and encourage them to stay the course. On those who were questionable, the pro-family people decided to get as many of the assembly members' constituents as possible to contact them.

Los Angeles televangelist Pastor Fred Price has a huge church in South Central Los Angeles. He personally contacted Dymally and for weeks had an announcement in his bulletin and coordinated phone banks to make sure Dymally got the message. Catholics for the Common Good coordinated contacts with Salinas' office to encourage him to hold the line. The Capitol Resource Institute, the California Family Council, and the Traditional Values Coalition all put forth a strong effort to bolster Negrete McLeod and Umberg. Bermudez and Torrico were also possible targets. Bermudez, however, basically told a group of local pastors to get lost; he wasn't changing his mind. Pro-family activists wanted to talk with Torrico through his pastor, but they never ascertained where he went to church.

But politics won out. Dymally's office told one of the pro-family group that, yes, it had received over 1,000 contacts from constituents. In the end, however, Dymally knew his reliably Democrat constituency would never vote for a Republican, so he could vote however he pleased and suffer no consequences. He voted for the measure.

It was suspected Negrete McLeod may have flipped when Speaker Fabian Nuñez (a prime supporter of AB 849) announced her appointment to some legislative commission that would help her politic with "Inland Empire leaders." It is said he doesn't do that for people who don't vote with him. Still, pro-family people couldn't imagine her going against her constituency. She did.

At a Labor Day picnic, every Democrat Party luminary lobbied Umberg. Up against that, diocese of Orange Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto's plea that the ambitious Catholic assemblyman abjure gaining the world stood no chance. Umberg said Bishop Soto "said that the majority of my constituents do not support gay marriage, and he hoped that I would not succumb to the more extreme elements who were supporting the bill."

The biggest surprise was Simon Salinas, thought the very last person to vote "aye," thus giving AB 849 its forty-first and deciding vote. Rumored to be against changing marriage, and running for state senate in a generally socially conservative area, he had nothing to gain by this. But pro-abortion Dolores Huerta, secretary-treasurer for the United Farm Workers, lobbied him intensely.

I'm told that as the vote tally stood at 40–35, the speaker and members of the Gay-Lesbian Caucus stood around Salinas' desk, badgering him to vote yes. The badgering worked, and the measure passed.

The biggest reason the pro-family movement failed to defeat AB 849 is that it has only spoken to its base. Ours is an overwhelmingly secular state. It is also largely libertarian when it comes to moral issues. The biggest question we heard was, "how does gay marriage affect my marriage at all?" Though compelling answers have been given to this question, they have been too religious. The pro-family movement did not give secular reasons for opposing homosexual unions into the hands of the average person who sleeps in on Sundays.

The second big mistake made by too many people -- including the governor -- was the appeal to Proposition 22. "The people have spoken at the ballot box," we were told. "They voted by 61 percent to reserve marriage in California to a union between a man and a woman. You can't go against the will of the people." But what happens if Leno gathers the requisite number of signatures to place an anti-Proposition 22 on the ballot? And what if that passes (as some opinion polls show it could)? Then what will pro-family people argue?

The pro-family advocates also let the other side too easily frame same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue, that we somehow discriminate if we reserve marriage to opposite sex couples. If the purpose of marriage is solely to provide people with helpmates, then confining marriage to opposite-sex couples is discrimination. However, if procreation and education are the ends, then saying who can and can't get married is no more discriminatory than saying siblings can't marry or that only high school graduates may serve in the military. Having a helpmate serves no public interest, but procreation and education do.

Currently two competing groups want to qualify "preserve marriage initiatives" for the ballot. One, supported by Randy Thomasson, executive director for the Campaign for Children and Families, and the coalition VoteYesMarriage.com, is seen by some as being much more immune to constitutional challenge. The proposed initiative reads, "only marriage between one man and one woman is valid or recognized in California, whether contracted in this state or elsewhere. Neither the Legislature nor any court, government institution, government agency, initiative statute, local government or government official shall abolish the civil institution of marriage between one man and one woman, or bestow statutory rights or incidents of marriage on unmarried persons, or require private entities to offer or provide rights or incidents of marriage to unmarried persons. Any public act, record, or judicial proceeding, from within this state or another jurisdiction, that violates this section is void and unenforceable."

But, the proposed initiative, in addition to defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, removes the recognition California has given since 1999 to domestic partnerships. Critics charge that while average Californians don't want same-sex marriage, they favor domestic partnerships and thus would not likely support this measure.

The other initiative, backed by the coalition ProtectMarriage.com, which reads simply, "a marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized by the state," leaves domestic partnerships untouched, but its critics charge it is more open to constitutional challenge.

Assemblyman Tim Leslie held a meeting in mid-September of pro-family legislative staff, legislators, and interest groups. The differences between the two proposals were discussed. While each side agrees they need to come together, nothing was resolved (basically because they agreed that the first priority should be passage of Proposition 73, the November 8 ballot measure that would require parental notification if an unemancipated minor seeks an abortion).

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