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Published: February 16, 2009
“Let’s pack the committee room with traditional marriage supporters”
Legislative hearings slated tomorrow on resolutions opposing Proposition 8
Committees in both houses of the California legislature have scheduled public hearings in Sacramento tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 17, on companion resolutions in the Assembly and Senate asking the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriages approved by voters last November.
 The Assembly Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing at 10:30 a.m. in Room 4202 of the state capitol on HR 5, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco. The resolution, while not having the force of law, would put the Assembly on record that it opposes Proposition 8 “because it is an improper revision, not an amendment, of the California Constitution and was not enacted according to the procedures required by Article XVIII of the California Constitution.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing at 12:30 p.m. in Room 4203 of the state capitol on SR 7, a companion measure in the state Senate introduced by Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat whose district includes Marin County and parts of San Francisco and Sonoma counties. “He is the first openly gay man elected to the State Senate, and one of the first two openly gay men ever elected to the Assembly,” says Leno’s official web site. SR 7 is virtually identical to HR 5, with only minor differences.
 “We anticipate that Proposition 8 opponents will be busing in hundreds of people to speak out against Proposition 8,” said a statement issued by the pro-family lobbying group Capitol Resource Institute. “We must encourage pro-family legislators on the Judiciary Committees by showing up for this hearing. Let’s pack the committee room with traditional marriage supporters! We understand it can be an inconvenience to drive downtown and spend the day at the capitol, but consider this your service as a citizen of our great nation. It’s also an outstanding opportunity to teach your children about their responsibilities as citizens. They can stand up for the truth in the heart of government.”
Capitol Resource Institute urged those unable to attend the hearings to contact members of each committee by phone, email or fax to ask them to vote no on the resolutions.
Also encouraging citizens to contact members of the two committees regarding the resolutions was Concerned Women for America of California. In a Feb. 12 “Action Alert,” the CWA said, “While these measures are non-binding, they fly in the face of the voters who passed the marriage amendment last November and are worthy of our concerted opposition. Each resolution concludes that Proposition 8 was ‘an improper revision, not an amendment, of the California Constitution.’ In truth, the proposition was just 14 words defining marriage, a change that does not rise to the level of a constitutional revision. Two much more significant amendments -- the taxation changes under Proposition 13 and the modifications in legislative term limits -- were reviewed by the California Supreme Court in the past. These were found not to be revisions.”
To read the text of HR 5, Click Here.
To read the text of SR 7, Click Here.
Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 2:10 AM By Dan
I believe in compassionate Catholicsim. It is wrong to deny fundamental constitutional rights to a minority. The elimination of a constitutional right is wrong. It sets a dangerous precedent. The constitutional rights of Catholics could be next. Say no to the elimination of Constitutional rights!
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 5:04 AM By Fr. M.P.
Pray and fight for natural Truth in the public square. The fate of California via chastisement depends on it.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 5:21 AM By Aaron
I completely understand the Catholic outcry against gay marriage. The traditional family is the basis of society. A mom & dad is good for children/society and essential to propagate the species (despite divorce rates/parents abandoning their kids). With that said, I am also obliged to point out that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) very purposely was created to ensure gays cannot have equal rights: DOMA REQUIRES marriage for the partners of federal employees to qualify for health insurance; you must be married to sponsor your foreign partner for immigration. DOMA is unfair to people like me (& 40,000 other bi-national gay couples) -- I had to move to Spain in order to be with Tomas, my 100% monogamous partner of 8 years. Because of DOMA, U.S. Immigration SPECIFICALLY does not recognize CA Domestic Partnerships. I don't have an answer, but civil laws must treat everyone equally. Gay marriage is a short hand way to grant equal rights not available under DOMA plus 1100 other rights given to married couples. That is why Prop 8 is unfair.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 5:34 AM By frances
I think that marriage between a man and women is very sacred to God.I will continue to pray for all those who are apparently in total spiritual darkness To think its ok to lay down man with man and women to women.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 6:18 AM By St. Christopher
This is an interesting exercise. The sodomites, of course, will likely be victorious in court, as well as in the CA Assembly. The level of evil is just too great, for now. You can see the same malevolence in Germany, over the fierce opposition by German bishops to the appointment -- now apparently in the process of being withdrawn -- of a conservative Auxiliary Bishop of Linz. The Vatican, and much of the institutional Church, are simply unable to compete with such madness, under present circumstances. The fight must be continued, although the price is now martyrdom.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 8:02 AM By J. Finnermon
Thank you posting the text of the proposed resolutions.
The fact remains Proposition 8 eliminated a fundamental right only for particular minority group.
And the fact remains that Proposition 8 was passed by only a bare majority of voters.
These resolutions seem pertinent and appropriate.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 8:06 AM By DarkKnight
Right. A packed committee room mean nothing to these Kool-Aid drinking ideologs. They don't care about the oathes of office that they took, their frittering their time away on useless feel-good garbage like this rather than passing a responsible budget that isn't based on fairy godmothers or Santa Claus.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 9:10 AM By Liberty Belle
It's about more than prop 8 now, it's about democracy. If all three branches of government go against two state-wide majority votes....is it still a democracy??
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 9:49 AM By bud
Living much too far to attend, I certainly want to encourage those that can get there to do so. Most of all, do not be intimadated by the big mouth activists. They probably will get all of the "talk" time!
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 10:26 AM By Willi H
This may be an act of futility. The liberal democrats in safe gerrymandered districts do not fear the electorate. Only if the same people who voted for Prop 8 and all traditional minded Catholics and Evangelicals voted against the party of Sodom and Death will there be hope for California. Pray without ceasing.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 11:11 AM By Lot
Two men cohabitating is not marriage; it is unnatural, it creates nothing and is responsible for the spread of a deadly disease. Marriage is rooted in human nature itself and the complementarity of the genders; one man and one woman procreating children and raising a family-the future of any society. The "gay" lobby wants to have sodomy redefined as "marriage" so they can punish anyone who won't go along with the agenda with hate speech and/or discrimination laws. The time to fight for what is right is now; what these groups are already doing in the school system is an outrage.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 11:12 AM By Dan
"I believe in compassionate Catholicsim. It is wrong to deny fundamental constitutional rights to a minority. The elimination of a constitutional right is wrong. It sets a dangerous precedent. The constitutional rights of Catholics could be next. Say no to the elimination of Constitutional rights!" Dan, this is the other Dan. What constitutional right are you seeking to protect? In all of western civilization, there has never been an instance when a right so in violation with natural law was even the object of a vote. But you do make one good point -- christians in general and catholics in particular will suffer for upholding God's law. Dan, you compassion is sadly misplaced -- the great sin of our time: sentimentality divorced from purdence or wisdom.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 11:29 AM By Pax Christi
Amen to your comments, Willi. It's clear which party sides with equality over religious freedom and which has it the other way around. Is it any wonder that the highest offices in the government and academia are occupied by the those with little or no regard for God? Folks like the arrogant lawmaker who not so long ago put down a black pastor's arguments as "B.S." when he cautioned that taking drastic steps to reverse global warming could negatively impact the economic well-being of minorities. Guess the world must be nearing an end what with the faithful being driven underground as prophesied. All I can say for those who are against Prop. 8 is to remember what Christ had to say to Peter for thinking in the ways of man and not of God: "Get thee behind me, Satan!"
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 11:39 AM By Ronnie
I too believe in a compassionate Cathollism and that's why I support Prop. 8. But there is, and has never been any fuandamental right granted to two people of the same sex or for that matter three, or an adult and a child, to marry. Our society is based on the natural law, one man and one woman. And once you deviate from that all hell breaks lose! People with confused gender identity need our love and support but not our assistance in continuing in their sin. Love the sinner, hate the sin...
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 12:59 PM By Ann Landell
Dan
marriage between a man and a woman is no more a right than sleeping or pooping is a right. Marriage is simply the natural order of things so that human babies who are not self sufficient for many years may be raised.
The government has no right to seize power over what is a natural process.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 1:56 PM By JLS
Marriage has been raised to a supernatural status by God. It is different from the mating and raising of offspring by animals, because humans are not only natural but supernatural in that they have eternal souls. The state has every right proper to a state to regulate its citizens, but these rights stem from God. Thus, the state is obligated to God to uphold marriage and guard against imitations.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 1:58 PM By JLS
Aaron, it's not just about whether gays are monogamous ... that does not lessen the sin. Nor should it qualify such people for any special rights, which they are clamoring for.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 2:02 PM By MarkF
Aaron and Dan, You seem to forget that Prop 8 was not designed to deny benefits to anyone, but rather to define in law what marriage is and isn't. When it defines marriage as only between one man and one woman, it also means that polygamist marriages are not legal. You can't have it both ways. If Prop 8 is struck down, then marriage will then be for whoever wants to get married, two men, two women, three women and one man, three women, etc. And if this happens, then we are one short step away from the taboo on incestuous marriages being struck down. Even when I was living the homosexual live I realized that you can't create "gay" marriage without also creating incestuous marriage at the same time. The only response I've ever got from the pro-homosexual crowd is that "it won't happen because it won't happen because it won't happen." That's not very reassuring. Some take the line that says that only homosexuals are declared (by the courts) to be a protected class of citizens that the change in marriage will only affect them and not the polygamous or the incestuous. They're saying that gays were discriminated against in the past and as such are protected from bias. The problem with that is that the courts can just as easily say that since laws were specifically made to ban polygamous marriage and incestuous marriage in the past, that they too are now a protected class of citizen. In fact, more laws were made to ban those practices than homosexual marriages, which no one, even homosexuals, ever considered to be a real marriage. If Prop 8 is struck down, we are one short court case away from having polygamous marriages and incestuous marriages. Also for Aaron, you were no more discriminated than any straight couple who is cohabitating. Also, there is much more to your case than you're willing to admit. You male lover can come here on a work visa. We've been through this before.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 3:08 PM By Pax Christi
To distill all of these comments into one easy-to-understand concept, gays indeed have the constitutional right to marry -- just to one adult partner of the opposite sex. That applies to each and every one of us -- thus, no discrimination. Period.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 3:21 PM By MAJRDAD
"And the fact remains that Proposition 8 was only passed by a bare minimum of voters." What sour grapes! How about we just keep voting on the proposal until a bare minimum of voters concede to your way of thinking on this issue? I'll bet that you wouldn't be upset with the "bare minimum" results then. What if Obama had only taken one more electoral vote than McCain -- would he still be the duly-elected President?
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 3:22 PM By Mary Ann, SingingMum
Compassionate Catholicism means not overlooking a child's right to a mother and a father. For those living the homosexual lifestyle, it simply isn't all about you. Changing marriage means changing family, and these changes impact much more than any particular, so-called minority.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 6:10 PM By A
As says the Latin phrase, "Rectum est in meridianus (virtue is in the middle)," there is good discrimination and bad discrimnation. We discriminate all the time against incestuous, polygamous, polyandrous and other "marriages" and rightly so. Legalizing "marriages" between two people of the same sex would open the door to chaos, and these people know it but are so selfish they don't care. It would also deliberately deprive children taken into such arrangements both a mother and a father.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 6:14 PM By Mark from PA
Note to St. Christopher, the priest in Linz withdrew his name for the position of bishop. This priest had views that 9/11 was a US government plot and also that hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for the bad people of New Orleans. A majority of the people in Linz (including priests) did not want a bishop with such strange views.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 6:15 PM By Anne T.
Two corrections: I accidently put "A" in the name box of my last post, and the ending sentence in that post should have said, "It would also deliberately deprive any children taken into that arrangement of either a mother or a father." Children are not "rights" but gifts from God. No one is entitled to have them. They are not puppies or animals but persons.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 6:32 PM By JLS
Campaign funding is done to garner the needed votes to win. Had Prop 8 required 2/3 of the vote to win, then the efforts to raise money for advertising would have been on a bigger scale. All the prop needed to win was a majority of one vote.
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 7:54 PM By Laurette Elsberry
The California Legislature has sold its soul to the sodomites. Did the Catholic Church try to stop it? No way!
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Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 8:13 PM By Sawyer
California Lobby Day is scheduled for April 28. How much do you want to bet that the "Catholic" peace and justice crowd will have nothing to say to the legislators about same-sex marriage when they lobby legislators on behalf of Catholic values?
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Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 1:22 AM By Aaron
Pax: So homosexuals have the right to marry a member of the opposite sex-therefore everyone has equal rights? What planet are you from? So you think homosexuals should get married and have kids when the opposite sex has no physical or emotional attraction? JLS: I don't want "special" rights -- just equal rights --Tomas could have married a lesbian friend who could have then sponsored him for immigration -- he/we chose NOT to take this phony action because we have integrity. Liberty Bell; The USA is a republic -- what that means is that our elected officials/courts make decisions regarding constitutional definition of equal rights. If everything was left to a popular vote, blacks in Georgia would still be drinking from "separate but equal" drinking fountains and sitting at the back of the bus. Mark: yes, we have been through the work visa thing before -- you just refuse to acknowledge that foreigners on work visas are paid half of what American citizens are paid for the same job; further, work visas last only 5 years after which the foreign worker must return to his native country for one full year before being allowed to return to the US. Why should Tomas have to go through these restrictions just because he is gay?
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Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 5:04 AM By Thark
my partner & I had been together for 27 years before getting married 10/27/08 but the moment we were told that California joined us together, there was a flush of... I'll call it "loving invincibility' that simply wasn't present before in such a palatably incontrovertible way; it was like California finally saying to us in no uncertain terms, "you two want to be together forever, and for the first time, your beloved State of California says we will help you wherever possible to do that" (Even for us old timers, it was an EXTREMELY transformative moment, and precisely why I care so much about more Americans-in-love-forever to know that that level of peaceful joy) The power of true love deserves this at teh very least. It is unethical -- nay purely Unholy -- for straight-marriage-only advocates to withhold such a moment for themselves and only the people they agree with. And as for those who say we should be forcibly divorced as a result of Prop 8? It's unthinkable that these folks dare call themselves "fair" or "representing God's will" in terms of their fellow man. To wit, we are left with the saddening feeling that too many straight people have gotten to the place where they take marriage 100% for granted, forgetting its true sanctity...
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Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 1:36 PM By Life Lady
Dan, "Bushwa!". You are completely off the mark. There is no such thing as a fundamental constitutional right to marry. The license to marry is regulated by the state. It happens that to have a license to marry in California, you must be of a legitimate age, of sound mind and body, and be a MAN who would marry a WOMAN. That is how the regulations are noted, how the license is issued, and how the so-called "right" comes into play. You apply for the license, and then if you meet the criteria, you can marry. You cannot be a same sex couple and marry, legally, in the state. You can, however, be a same sex couple and apply for a partnership, and meet those criteria. But the right to marry is ridiculous, like your mistaken statement is.
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Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:23 PM By Richard
I'm curious, Thark, how your homosexual relationship has added to the sanctity of marriage. You refer to heterosexuals as "unholy". Obviously Genesis got it wrong. Musta been God created the first couple, not Adam & Eve but Ralph & Orville.
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Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 6:19 PM By JLS
Aaron, every person has at least some integrity. Even the devil quoted Scripture to Jesus.
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Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 6:41 PM By Talitha Kumi
Pax Christi, re: Feb16 3:?? PM sums it up pretty well.
Fr M P. chastisement. how can it Not be on the way?..
.
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 9:26 AM By TommyT
Liberty Belle and Life Lady - thank you for your comments! I have yet to see where marriage is a fundamental right. It is not a right. We all make choices in our lives and there are consequences to our choices. While there is debate whether or not same sex attraction is biological or not, there is a conscious decision made on how to act.
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 9:38 AM By Aaron
JLS: This commentary should not be used for personal insinuations that would impugn the integrity of others. When you engage in personal attacks, people wisely stop listening to you. THARK: Congratulations to you and your husband. Hopefully the CA courts will not force your marriage to disappear from public records. 27 years is a long long time-Tomas and I have been together only 8 years, but we are committed to a lifetime together. You are a wonderful example of what marriage should be- a lifetime commitment!
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 10:26 AM By Grisha
Life lady - Do you then agree that Civil Unions are a good solution and that the Church ought not opsose them?
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 10:44 AM By Grisha
Mark F: There is no guarantee that Tomas could get a work visa, especially in this economic climate. Even then, it wouldn't be permanent. There is a piece of legislation, I believe called the Permanent Partners Immigration Act which would solve Tomas and Aaron's problem without marriage. If the Church and conservative elements in American society had not fought these kinds of humanitarian solutions, as well as Civil Unions, it's possible the groundswell for same gender marriage never would have taken off the way it did.
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 12:29 PM By Aaron
Grisha: Wise words. The Defense of Marriage Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1996 is a perfect example of what you are talking about. The act senselessly put in place a homophobic agenda designed to permanently take away rights from gay couples. I am astounded by the very name of the act: it does nothing whatever to defend traditional marriage -- it only enraged the gay community and helped us more militant -- an unexpected consequence. The only way to defend marriage is to outlaw divorce (and I don't expect that to happen very soon). Forcing me to move to Spain in order to maintain a harmonious relationship with Tomas does NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING to defend traditional marriage.
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 1:20 PM By JLS
Why issue work visas now in the time of 10% unemployment?
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Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2009 8:53 PM By Victoria
JLS, there are very few times when I agree with you. But in the case of your statement regarding work visas, I must say, I am in total agreement.
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