Dear Governor Schwarzenegger –
When you vetoed AB 849, the 2005 version of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, you said you “do not believe the Legislature can reverse an initiative approved by the people of California” on the advice of your Attorney General, Bill Lockyer.
I don’t know why this was relevant to AB 849. The bill would not have “reversed an initiative” but rather changed a 1977 law signed by your current Attorney General, Edmund “Jerry” Brown.
I am worried that your Attorney General’s office is biased against the freedom to marry. To defend the state’s position, the office wrote “the words ‘marry’ and ‘marriage’ have no essential significance under the California Constitution,” and that there are no differences between California’s registered domestic partners and married couples under state law.
If there are no differences, why does a different section of the Family Code apply to my family and yours? If there are no differences, why are they – and you – opposed to merging them through AB 43? The fact is that same-sex couples have been carved out for special denial of the basic security of marriage that everybody else – including you and your Attorney General – so blithely enjoy, because of a law that your Attorney General signed!
The lesbian and gay communities have joined with the religious communities to ask for the freedom to marry as they choose, while your Attorney General’s office is siding with the Opponents of Equality to defend a bad law from 1977 by mischaracterizing it as a voter initiative.
It is offensive to my sense of justice to have the Attorney General working harder for your personal protection than for the people of this state. Please sign AB 43 so we can get the Attorney General out of the business of deciding who should – and should not – have the freedom to marry.
Sincerely,