AB 19 OPENING STATEMENT
Assemblyman Mark Leno

Assembly Floor
June 2, 2005

Members, I want to sincerely thank each of you, those who will be supportive of AB19 as well as those who will not be, for the opportunity and honor to present this bill today.

For the millions of Californians AB19 will benefit, those gay and lesbian couples, their families and friends, this is a moment long awaited. The evolution and great promise of our democracy are unfolding today. We have not arrived at this debate and vote overnight. Our history of securing full legal rights for same sex couples has been long and incremental. Those who fight to prevent change fight fiercely to protect the status quo.

When California changed state law so that men would no longer legally own their wives and their wives’ labor, those defending the past warned that civilization as we know would come to an end. And of course it did – for the better. When California changed state law allowing for civil divorce those defending the past again cried that the sky would fall. When California changed state law ending the ban on inter-racial marriage, defenders of the past warned that the foundation stones of our society would crumble and that the mongrel breed of children from such marriages would be born into misery.

More recently, the same dire predictions of the apocalypse were raised when this legislature added the words sexual orientation to the Fair Employment and Housing Act and when it created the country’s first Domestic Partnership registry. Defenders of the past fought hard to preserve slavery, to deny women their right to vote and Jim Crow’s so-called separate but equal policies. Nonetheless, we have evolved and prospered fulfilling our Constitution’s hope and promise along the way.

AB19, The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, is at its core about affording all Californians the dignity and respect of their human birthright. It will amend Section 300 of the California Family Code to define marriage as a civil contract between two persons while at the same time protecting in statute any religious institution’s right to not recognize or solemnize these marriages.

AB19 is based on the concept found in our state constitution that a citizen may not be granted rights not granted on the same terms to all citizens and the same concept found in our U.S. Constitution that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The bill is also based on the belief that our ability to love is our common and shared humanity – that we are all born with the desire to love another human being in an intimate and committed fashion.

AB19 is founded on the assumption that we all share the same hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations, joy and aspirations for ourselves and our families – that we are, indeed, one human family. As the NAACP stated in its letter of support for AB19, “different laws for different people have no place in our society.”

When the CA Supreme Court ended the ban on inter-racial marriage in 1948, our justices stated that marriage is more than a civil contract to be regulated by state law. They said that marriage is a fundamental right of all citizens. They also said that any legislation infringing upon that fundamental right must be based upon more than prejudice and must be free of oppressive discrimination to comply with the constitutional requirements of due process and equal protection under the law.

 But when this legislature added gender limitations to Section 300 of the Family Code in 1977, it was specifically to deny same sex couples their fundamental right to marry. Our opponents claim that there is nothing discriminatory in the current law, that everyone has the right to marry as long as it is with someone of the opposite sex. But, as the MA high court ruled, the right to marry without the right to marry the person of one’s choice is no right at all.

Why would we want our government to be dictating to us the innermost workings of our heart and soul? Why would we want the government involved in such a personal and intimate decision making process?

I ask for you open heart, your open mind and for your aye vote.

 

Assemblyman Mark Leno
AB 19 CLOSING STATEMENT
Assembly Floor
June 2, 2005

I thank you colleagues for the spirited debate. You have heard the opposition’s proclamations that marriage has been eviscerated by AB205 and that family and society will be irrevocably damaged by passage of this bill.

Let’s look at the facts. In the year since the state of MA has legally issued marriage licenses to committed and loving same sex couples the number of heterosexual marriages has increased – from an average of 37,000 per year to over 41,000 in the most recent year. If anything, opposite sex couples may have received a boost in their enthusiasm for the institution. MA continues to have the lowest divorce rate of all fifty states whereas the states which have passed constitutional bans on same sex marriages have among the highest rates of divorce in this country. In the same year period, a recent Boston Globe poll indicates that popular support for marriage equality within that state has increased from 40% to 56%. Clearly, after marriage licenses are issued and the hyperbolic protestations subside, life peacefully if more equitably goes on.

Not unlike the Jews in Europe 70 years ago, gay and lesbian citizens today are abused by some politicians for their political gain. A low grade dislike for and lack of familiarity with our community can so easily be fanned into flames of hysterical uproar. But as elected leaders, it is incumbent upon us to pierce through myth and speak the truth.

Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down and commit our lives to one another. We raise our children, protect them and try to make them good citizens. We share our property together. We make medical decisions together. We pay our taxes and care for our elderly parents. We live our lives together, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part

Having been at San Francisco ’s City Hall in February of last year, I can tell you from personal experience the extraordinary joy and elation shared by over 8,000 participants, their families and friends. Young men and women publicly reciting their vows while holding cells phones so that their proud parents could share in the celebratory occasion. Middle aged couples surrounded by their children and grandchildren participating in a human rite of passage so long denied them and their chosen loving, life partner. Senior couples many of whom having already spent an entire lifetime of 40 or 50 years together, for the first time allowed to say the words “and with this ring, I thee wed”.

Why would over 4,000 couples from 46 states and 7 countries rush to our City Hall to access a civil marriage license from our county clerk? Was it on a whim such as Britney Spears’ when she married for 12 hours in Las Vegas ? Was it to destroy the institution of marriage as the Traditional Values Coalition suggests? Hardly. The 1000+ legal rights and benefits which accompany a civil marriage license are certainly a factor.

But every poll taken indicates that the primary reason same sex couples are eager to marry is for the dignity, respect and validation which comes only with the fact of marriage. For a community which has literally come from out of the shadows and closet these past 35 years, reclaiming simple human dignity is a life changing experience. What else could bring streams of tears to the eyes of couples together for decades? Peaceful, loving people receiving the respect and dignity denied them for a lifetime.

If our goal is to teach our children self respect and encourage self esteem, is it not counter productive to dishonor them, their parents or their families? 

As you cast your vote, please consider the boy or girl fortunate to be growing up in a loving and nourishing home with a devoted mother and father who cannot understand why he or she will be denied the same joy and happiness his or her parents share in marriage simply because that child is gay.

Consider the heterosexual child who cannot understand why his or her loving and supportive same sex parents are not allowed the simple receipt of a civil marriage license.

Let me close with the words of a heterosexual 17 year old young woman who considers me to be her godfather. She is an honor student, class president, top varsity athlete and a fierce fighter for her two mothers’ full civil rights.

“As a child, I cannot understand why anyone would want to further discriminate against me and my family. I don’t think that my generation should be taught that discrimination is acceptable and that some families are less valued than another. No one deserves to be treated as a second class citizen and no child deserves to be told that she and her family are deserving of hatred and discrimination”.

I ask for your aye vote.