California: Same-sex marriage ban unlikely to make June ballot

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California: Same-sex marriage ban unlikely to make June ballot

By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, December 21, 2005

A proposed state constitutional amendment that would outlaw same-sex marriages and marital benefits for domestic partners in California will probably fail to qualify for the June ballot, a lawyer with the sponsoring group said Tuesday.

The measure is still circulating but is unlikely to gather the 598,105 signatures it needs by Tuesday's deadline, said Andrew Pugno, an attorney representing the "Protect Marriage'' initiative campaign.

"There will not be a measure on the ballot this coming year,'' Pugno said.

The same sponsors have been cleared by the state to recirculate their initiative for November, but time is already starting to run out on that effort, said Peter Henderson, chairman of the initiative steering committee.

The initiative drive's failure leaves the marriage issue in the hands of the courts. A challenge to the state law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman is before a state appeals court in San Francisco and could reach the state Supreme Court by late next year.

Judge Richard Kramer of San Francisco Superior Court ruled in March that the ban on same-sex marriage discriminates on the basis of gender and violates the right under the state Constitution to marry the partner of one's choice. He put his ruling on hold while it is appealed.

The proposed ballot measure, backed by most Republican state legislators and an array of religious and social conservative organizations, would overturn both Kramer's ruling and the recent state law that extended many marital rights to domestic partners.

Henderson said signature-gathering had been impeded for several reasons, including the Nov. 8 statewide special election and conservatives' involvement in the unsuccessful campaign to pass Proposition 73, which would have required parental notification for minors' abortions.

Geoff Kors, executive director of the gay rights organization Equality California, said he had seen little evidence of signature-gathering and wasn't surprised that the initiative had fallen short.

On another front, a judge ruled Monday that the city of San Jose went too far in March 2004 when it granted marital benefits to same-sex city employees who had been legally married elsewhere -- including San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized weddings for gay and lesbian couples at City Hall for a month before the state Supreme Court intervened.

The San Jose City Council had no authority to override the state's marriage law, said Judge Mary Jo Levinger of Santa Clara County Superior Court.

David Vossbrink, spokesman for Mayor Ron Gonzales, said the ruling will not cut off benefits to any employees. That's because the City Council, in anticipation of the new state law on domestic partners, changed its policy late last year and extended marital and family benefits to city employees who are domestic partners, regardless of marital status.

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