California legislature to vote on same-sex marriage
SACRAMENTO -- Legislation to allow same-sex marriage in California will go to a full vote in the Assembly next week.The measure was approved Wednesday night by the Appropriations Committee, the final step in getting to the floor for a vote.
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"We have very high hopes it will prevail," Equality California spokesperson Eddie Gutierrez told 365Gay.com.
The bill, known as the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, is sponsored by Mark Leno, an openly gay Democrat from San Francisco. It would "require local clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples but allow people opposed to gay marriage to refuse to conduct weddings."
It's unclear whether California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, would sign the bill:
In a January meeting with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle Schwarzenegger suggested that this may not be the best time to push gay marriage, saying that a legislative push to fully recognize marriage rights for gays might backfire."Eventually in a few years from now, you can readdress it again and see what the people of California think,'' he told the paper. "You cannot force-feed those kind of things.''
Last year in a Tonight Show appearance Schwarzenegger said gay marriage would be "fine with me" if it were enshrined in state law or ruled legal by the courts.