A day after California's Legislature became the first in the nation to pass a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced through an aide Wednesday that he would veto the measure "out of respect for the will of the people."
In a careful statement, Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson invoked the voter approval in March 2000 of Proposition 22, which said: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
"The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action -- which would be unconstitutional -- but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state," the statement said. "We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote."
The statement also said Schwarzenegger "believes that gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against." It did not offer his opinion on same-sex marriage, but when asked about it last year, the governor said, "I don't care one way or the other."
The California Supreme Court is likely to decide next year whether Proposition 22 and other state laws that define marriage are constitutional.
The issue burst into prominence in California last year when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed officials there to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The move drew thousands of couples to the city for highly publicized weddings before the state Supreme Court ruled that Newsom had exceeded his authority. Massachusetts allows same-sex marriages, but they derived from court order, not the legislative approval seen in Sacramento on Tuesday.
In addition to the likely court ruling on same-sex marriage, the issue may be headed back to the ballot: Opponents of gay marriage have been collecting signatures to qualify measures for the June 2006 vote that would ban same-sex marriage.
Schwarzenegger's announcement sparked fierce reactions from advocates on both sides of the issue.
"The only reason that he could be doing this is that he is pandering to the far right," said Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the measure's author.
Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute, a Sacramento group that opposed the bill, said the governor had "kept his word against the runaway Legislature.... As a social conservative, I never thought I'd see the day when I said I was glad Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor."
