Dear Governor Schwarzenegger –
Thank you for your veto on SB 153 Housing Co-Ownership, a bill that would have provided protection from Prop 13 property tax increases to surviving homeowners that are not domestic partnered or legally married. This is what marriage and Domestic Partnership is for, and those who want these rights need to accept the responsibility of marriage and Domestic Partnership.
I had to fight damn hard to get laws passed so that Prop 13 property tax increases would apply equally to me and my Domestic Partner as they do to married partners, and now that we are approaching equality in those separate institutions, I don’t want to go down the slippery slope of blessing people who are only willing to shack up on par with marriage and Domestic Partnership.
Thank you for doing the right thing on SB 153. I do want to mention that SB 153 would not have been even considered had you not vetoed AB 43 the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act of 2007, a bill that would have stopped this dangerous slide at “marriage” by changing the label, not the laws.
I hope throughout the upcoming year that you work towards eliminating the need for these bills by supporting full marriage equality in the State of California.
Sincerely,