Schwarzenegger Plans to Veto Gay Marriage Again
Posted on February 17, 2007
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis’s usurper, says if the California Legislature passes a marriage equality bill for a second time he will veto it a second time.
Speaking to a YMCA youth conference, he’s quoted by the San Jose Mercury News, saying,
I wouldn’t sign it because the people of California have voted on that issue.
This is a cynical statement and points to yet another failing in the California’s long history of experimenting with direct democracy. Earlier I gave my opinion on the danger of the initiative process:
The problem is that the states have gotten some pretty rotten laws and constitutional amendments through these methods. For whatever reason some well-financed special interests have been able to fund both the initiative process and all the media buys needed to get measures to pass. Sometimes the special interests are industry groups; sometimes they are majority population groups.
The outcomes of such basic issues should not be awarded to the best financed side, or the one with the best tv commercials, and not necessarily to the side who best frames their argument. In most cases the law recognizes that justice is independent of popular opinion.
A favorite quote from Mercury News comes from Geoffrey Kors, of Equality California:
How would the governor feel if his right to marry First Lady Maria Shriver had been put to a popular vote?
Not much in it, but the mind races! Let’s put to a popular vote whether a cynical, Republican, politician, accused womanizer, and body builder, should be allowed to marry Shriver, a journalist, daughter of the Peace Corps founder, and scion of the Democratic Kennedy clan?
Imagine a well-financed opponent’s ads, the dark music, the xenophobia (Arnold’s Austrian roots), and tons of ugly innuendo for all alleged unwholesome aspects that could not be stated outright. Ms. Shriver would be painted in wildly exaggerated contrasts. Additionally, voice-overs would opine about how such a union would soil the memories of her martyred uncles and all the good work of the Peace Corps.
I couldn’t predict the outcome of such a referendum, but the advertising would get more views than American Idol. I suspect that Arnold and Maria would be allowed to marry; but, I also suspect that the vote would be uncomfortably close because of the power of money and advertising.
Clearly such basic human relationships as Shriver-Schwarzenegger should not be put to popular vote, and neither should those of gays and lesbians.
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how can he deside on gay marrige whene ho nos nothing about it….
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