California OKs push to repeal LGBT teaching law
California officials gave the go-ahead July 25 for anti-gay forces to begin collecting signatures for a voter referendum next June on the new law that requires public schools to teach about LGBT people's history.
Attorney General Kamala Harris titled the proposal, "Referendum to Overturn Non-Discrimination Requirements for School Instruction."
And she summarized it this way: "If signed by the required number of registered voters and filed with the Secretary of State, this petition will place on the statewide ballot a challenge to a state law previously approved by the Legislature and Governor. The law must then be approved by a majority of voters at the next statewide election to go into effect. The law would require school instructional materials to recognize societal contributions of various groups; and would prohibit school instructional materials that reflect adversely on persons based on their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and other characteristics."
Opposition forces now face the arduous task of collecting 504,760 valid signatures from registered California voters and turning them in to county officials by Oct. 12.
Equality California, which sponsored the teaching bill in the Legislature, appears to have taken the lead in whatever LGBT effort will be made to thwart the signature drive or save the law at the ballot box.
The group has requested $50,000 from its supporters "to launch a statewide education program," vowed to provide information in the future on how people hoping to save the law can volunteer, and urged its supporters to "report signature gatherers."
"If you spot a Stop SB 48 organizer gathering signatures in your community, let us know on Facebook," EQCA Executive Director Roland Palencia said. ( The law was Senate Bill 48. )
"Our opponents will use this signature-gathering time to make wild claims about the FAIR Education Act -- that it will expose children to 'gay sex' and force them to 'accept homosexuality,'" Palencia said. "These lies based on prejudice about LGBT people and kids have formed the foundation of every campaign, including marriage equality, they have ever waged against our community and every campaign they will wage -- until we stop them."
Palencia didn't reveal what tactics EQCA may have up its sleeve.
Gays, lesbians marry in New York
Gay and lesbian couples began marrying in New York state July 24 -- hundreds upon hundreds the first day the law legalizing same-sex marriage took effect.
Dale Getto and Barbara Laven in Albany may have been first. Mayor Gerald Jennings said he spoke the key phrase at 12:00:01 a.m.
A minute or so later, Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster married Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd at the falls, which were lit with rainbow lights.
Later in the day, more than 40 couples got married at the falls.
In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officiated at the wedding of his staff members John Feinblatt and Jonathan Mintz on the steps of Gracie Mansion.
On July 25, conservative groups sued to stop the marriages, alleging procedural irregularities accompanying the law's passage and signing.
A spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the suit "is without merit."
Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington, D.C. Same-sex marriages from elsewhere are recognized as marriages in Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island and California ( if the marriage took place before Proposition 8 passed ) .
Eleven other nations allow same-sex couples to marry -- Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Mexico ( where same-sex marriages are allowed only in the capital city but are recognized nationwide ) .
ABA honors Olson, Boies
The American Bar Association will honor Ted Olson and David Boies, the famous odd-couple lawyers who got Proposition 8 declared unconstitutional last year.
The two star attorneys, who represented George W. Bush and Al Gore respectively before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2000 "hanging chad" election debacle, teamed up with the American Foundation for Equal Rights to fight the voter-passed constitutional amendment that re-banned same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
A federal district judge in San Francisco agreed with their arguments and struck down the amendment, which has remained in force as the ruling is appealed.
On Aug. 8, Olson and Boies will receive the American Bar Association Medal, a rare honor that isn't bestowed at all in some years.
"Ted and David show that excellence in the legal profession transcends partisan and ideological boundaries," said AFER Board President Chad Griffin. "Thanks to these two world-class legal minds the dark walls of discrimination are beginning to crumble."
Last year, Time magazine declared Olson and Boies two of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Same-sex couples remain unable to marry in California while three matters wind through the courts:
1. The appeal of the ruling that struck down Prop 8. The appeal is currently paused in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
2. Pending decisions from both the California Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit on whether the people who filed the appeal had a right to appeal. California state officials refused to defend Prop 8, so the sponsors of the ballot measure appealed the ruling that struck it down.
3. A pending determination by the 9th Circuit on whether the entire District Court ruling should be tossed out because the judge who issued it is in a same-sex relationship and, supposedly, could have had a desire to get married himself at the moment he issued the decision.
The alleged judicial conflict-of-interest issue is unlikely to go anywhere, but the question of whether the ballot-measure sponsors have legal "standing" to appeal is a real one. If they don't, there will be no appeal and the ruling that struck down Prop 8 will take effect.
Should the appeal proceed on the merits of the decision, it would be heard first by the 9th Circuit and then likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could uphold Prop 8, strike it down in a way that applies only to California, or strike it down in a way that legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide.
Assistance: Bill Kelley
