aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The begining of the end in CA?

California anti-Gay Marriage group bows out:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—One of two groups competing to put a gay marriage ban before California voters in 2006 has bowed out of the fight for now, saying the timing and political climate are not right to get such a measure passed.

Tuesday was the deadline for ProtectMarriage.com to submit the signatures needed to qualify for the June primary ballot one of two overlapping initiatives that would outlaw same-sex marriage and restrict domestic partnership rights.

Andrew Pugno, the group’s legal adviser, said the signature drive had fallen about 200,000 voters short of the requirement for 591,105 signatures. [...]

Last summer, the California Legislature became the nation’s first elected state body to pass a bill legalizing gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the law, but conservative activists warned that without amending the Constitution it was only a matter of time before either lawmakers or the courts sanctioned same-sex unions.

A rift among conservatives, however, led the two groups to promote dueling gay marriage bans while sniping publicly over which proposal was better. At the center of the split was disagreement over how far the anti-gay marriage camp should go in attempting to repeal the significant spousal rights domestic partners are granted in California.

Via AMERICAblog.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum pops in from vacation to find an ambiguous lesson in the LATimes article reporting the CA same sex marriage foes’ faltering. He wonders if a slightly lower profile - while counting on demographic trends - is the way for gay marriage advocates to win.