Dear Mr. Kanaley:
I know that you have a lot to worry about with your election on Tuesday but you seem to have been quite critical of your opponents support of AB 43, the “Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act” without apparently understanding what the bill is about. It would be quite sad if voters elected somebody who opposed their freedom based on incomplete information.
I found this statement about AB 43 on your stump page http://www.lbreport.com/ads/37cong/kan2.htm where you said:
“This past June California Assembly members voted to legalize homosexual marriage, completely and arrogantly ignoring the will of California voters who, in March of 2000, passed Prop. 22 with 61.4% of the vote. That initiative called for the state to recognize marriage as only being between one man and one woman. 101 of 120 legislative districts voted for this initiative.”
The truth is a little bit complicated, but so is being an effective legislator:
Proposition 22 did not call for the state to recognize marriage as only being between one man and one woman. Our Family Code already did that in Section 300, which was changed from “persons” to “man and woman” by the legislature in 1977 and signed by Governor Jerry Brown.
Proposition 22 was designed and sold to prevent California from recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions. That’s what the campaign was about, and that’s what the voters passed. It enhanced section 308 which says we recognize marriages from other states and countries, to limit that recognition to heterosexual marriages.
As a Republican, you ought to support full marriage equality in fact and in name, since it not only reduces duplicative laws and entitlement programs, but also gets government out of restricting our freedom.
If you had read AB 43 you would know that it doesn’t conflict with Proposition 22 one single bit. I think Californians deserve a candidate who reads laws before criticizing them at least as much as they deserve representatives who are not opposed to equality.
Sincerely,