Hanging on to Equality

On May 15, the California Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the statewide ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 22, was unconstitutional thus opening the door to same-sex marriage in the state. An initiative will likely appear on the November ballot to add a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This is my amateur analysis.

How do we hold on to marriage equality? At the bar the night of the Supreme Court decision, almost every conversation included a little hesitance about the future of gay marriage. Sure, we won in the Supreme Court – which was good enough back in the 60s – but now we need to fear the voters and there’s a looming ballot initiative to put the pooper on gay marriage in the state constitution. And we’ve been here before… and we lost. Remember?

November 2008 is different than March 2000. The Knight Initiative passed when I was still in college and I’m turning 30 this year for crying out loud. California’s come a long way in 8 years – and people like George Bush will probably have done more to support gay marriage than they ever had hoped.

This November, California’s electorate will be polarized. A presidential contest is on the ballot. The Democrats are coming of an exciting and newsworthy primary contest that brought millions of new voters to the party. And our nominee will stand out starkly against the tired, old conservative politics of yesterday.

This is not March 2000. It’s easy for lazy news people to pull out Proposition 22 as a harbinger of doom for marriage equality. But, have they looked at the numbers and the circumstance of the last election in which marriage equality was on the ballot?

First, Proposition 22 was on a primary ballot. Partisan contests drive voters to the polls. Unfortunately for justice, the Democratic primary in 2000 was mostly a settled deal. There was no big, top-of-the-ticket battle driving progressive Democrats to the March 2000 primary. Despite a huge voter registration edge in California, only half as many votes were cast for Democrats as there were for Republicans. According to the Secretary of State, nearly 4.5 million votes were cast for Republican primary candidates while only 2.75 million were cast for Democratic primary candidates. Republicans had more than one reason to get out and vote in March – it wasn’t just the gays.

The primary election wasn’t a legitimate sign of what was in store. In November, Al Gore trounced Governor Bush in the Golden State, winning nearly one and a half million more votes. The trend continued in 2004 and 2006, when John Kerry and Barbara Boxer – 2 liberal Democrats – both won their statewide votes with more than one and a half million more votes than their conservative rivals. California is not a conservative state, despite the outcome of Proposition 22 and it would likely not have faired as well had it been on the general election ballot.

The second factor at play should there be an amendment on the ballot on November is star power. Who will support a gay-marriage ban being added to the constitution? The popular Republican governor has made repeated comments, including affirming it yesterday, that he will not support or campaign for a constitutional ban. The only other statewide elected official is a nearly unknown Insurance Commissioner who is probably more liberal than Governor Schwarzenegger. The Republican nominee for President opposed a Federal Amendment enshrining discrimination into the Constitution, and has repeatedly set the issue should be left to the states to settle, as we did a few weeks ago. Where would be John McCain’s legitimate argument to be the spokesperson on behalf of discrimination?

On the opposing side, the starting line-up is full of titans of California politics who have made strong statements of support for equality. Just behind Governor Schwarzenegger, you have the two big-city mayors who might want his job, Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa. Don’t underestimate what Gavin Newsom will do to protect his legacy. This is his issue and he’s owned it and championed it for 4 years. I expect he will spend a small fortune, which he’ll have no trouble raising, to defeat an amendment. He might ride this issue right into the Governor’s mansion, which is being re-made by First Lady Maria Shriver, no doubt another big name opponent to an amendment. Maybe Republican San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders will campaign against the amendment, especially after his tear-feared public reversal on marriage equality. Mayor Sanders went through the same process most of California will go through in November, realizing that his family is personally touched by this issue and that political grandstanding fails when it breaks up your own family.

Finally, maybe we might just be surprised by what voters can do when it really matters, when it really counts. This primary season showed us how exciting it can be to be part of history. Millions of Democrats, progressive independents, and history-minded Republicans were thrilled to cast ballots for the either the first woman or first African American to be nominated as president. Maybe that energy is all it takes, to be part of history and be able to tell your children that you got to vote on someone’s human integrity and you voted the right way.