Dear Governor Schwarzenegger –
I want to ask you a question: why are you really planning to veto AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act?
- It’s obviously not from a hatred of gays, or you wouldn’t have signed all the Domestic Partnership bills that we have labored to bring you.
- It’s probably not because you want bloated government, with two sets of laws covering relationships, making loopholes that cost taxpayers money, or you would not have fought against bloated government your whole political career.
- It’s clearly not because of ‘the will of the people’ because anybody with the brains God gave geese knows that the legislature would not have sent this to you if we had not convinced ‘the people’ to ask for it.
- I hope it isn’t because you think the courts should decide. Every citizen knows that the legislature is supposed to make the decisions, the courts are supposed to enforce them.
- It probably isn’t because of Proposition 22, a bill that did nothing to change marriage in California that was passed seven-years ago and will not be affected by AB 43, because you know that same-sex couples were actually excluded from marriage by Governor Jerry Brown in 1977.
- It can’t be because of religion: too many people of faith believe in the freedom to love over the freedom to judge, and you would never stand in the way of religious freedom.
- It is likely not because you think that Domestic Partnership is enough, because anybody who has been married, as you have, knows the difference a wedding makes.
I imagine what happened is that Karl Rove sat you down and said you can break with the Party on healthcare and the environment, but if California gets gay marriage, it will make the party that said gays can’t be good parents look like fools. Republicans will lose their big bigoted donors and their committed base won’t turn out.
It’s the only reason I can think of that you would be willing to veto against your conscience. I wish it wasn’t true, because it means you’re going to flush my freedom to marry the person I love down the toilet in a short-term and short-sighted play for votes, power and money.
Please – please – please – tell me the real reason that you are going to veto my family, because it can’t be worse than the one that I have imagined.
Anxiously,