CA: Marriage fight casts shadow on Senate race

Link: The Bay Area Reporter Online

Excerpt:

The likelihood that California will be convulsed by another fight over same-sex marriage at the polls in November is casting a shadow on the heated Senate race between two of the state's most powerful gay lawmakers. 

Now that anti-gay groups are claiming they have collected enough signatures to place a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot this fall, the question arises who is better suited to lead the fight to defeat it: state Senator Carole Migden or Assemblyman Mark Leno?

And the rematch over the issue – voters once before passed a ban on gay marriage in the March 7, 2000 primary – is dredging up Leno's and Migden's involvement in what was then known as the No on Knight campaign against Proposition 22, pushed by the late Republican state Senator Pete Knight.

The two out San Francisco Democrats are vying for Migden's 3rd District Senate seat in the June 3 primary along with former Marin Assemblyman Joe Nation. While both Migden and Leno will continue to serve in the Legislature through the fall, should either of them win the Senate race that person will be expected to lead the fight against the marriage measure.

In interviews with the Bay Area Reporter , all three lawmakers vowed to do everything they could to defeat the marriage ban. 

Migden said she would do "everything" to defeat it. 

"I'll rally, raise money," she said.

Nation, a co-sponsor of the pro-gay marriage legislation Leno introduced when he was in the Assembly in 2004, also pledged to fight alongside the LGBT community should he be elected. 

"I will raise money, walk precincts, speak out against it and do everything I could possibly do," said Nation. "It is a fundamental basic civil right people should have."

Leno said this week that he has already contacted Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California and a leader of Equality for All, the coalition of statewide groups formed to defeat the initiative, to offer his support. 

"Once I get past June 3 my focus will be on defeating the constitutional amendment," said Leno. "I would be honored to travel the state and speak on behalf of marriage equality."

Leno also said that should the state Supreme Court rule in favor of gay marriage, he would use a legislative maneuver to "gut and amend" a bill already introduced to the Legislature to revive his marriage bill. The court is expected to issue its ruling in the consolidated same-sex marriage lawsuit by June 3.

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Continue reading this long item on the BAR site.

[jw]