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Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,
I am writing to ask you to please change your mind about vetoing the marriage equality bill.
You are choosing the Religious Right's moral indignation over the safety and security of millions of California men, women and children.
You stated a year ago that you would support gay marriage if it was the will of the people. The people's views are reflected in their representatives, and these representatives have passed this law. That's the way our system works. In addition, the latest public polls taken in California show 46% in favor of gay marriage, 46% against it, and 8% who apparently don't care. This clearly means the majority of Californians now either approve or don't care. To veto this bill is to break a promise made on national television.
Your excuse of claiming that Prop 22 invalidates this bill, is in error. Prop 22 has been ruled unconstitutional by both a lower court judge, and a superior court judge. At this point in time it cannot be enforced, and is therefore moot.
You're also claiming that it is the courts who should now decide (yet your own political party is blaming "activist judges" for
forcing gay marriage). By doing this you are now asking for many Californians to put their lives on hold and pray that nothing happens to their partners or children until the Supreme court can eventually get around to it in a few years.
There is no valid argument against allowing same-sex marriages. In fact studies done by the state of California show that it would
have a positive financial effect. Allowing marriage will remove people from state assistance and state funded insurance programs,
and there may be a tremendous tourism boom. If you truly want to lower our state's deficit then you should welcome same-sex marriage.
If nothing else, do it for the children. Marriage is the only institution that can protect the children of same-sex families.
Without these protections, children are often left homeless and emotionally devastated when one parent dies. This is because the
remaining parent has no legal claim to the home, and no legal ties to the child. Oftentimes the child is separated from the surviving
parent, by relatives or social workers, because of prejudice or the resultant financial state of the surviving parent.
How would you feel if your estate did not automatically go to your wife and kids if something happened to you: that a distant
relative of yours would actually have more legal claim to your home than your wife and kids would? This is the fear of every same-sex family in California, and you have the power to fix it.
California was one of the first states in the country to allow interracial marriage. At that time 70% of the pubic opposed it,
and yet our state took a stand and made it law because it was the right thing to do. Signing this bill is the right thing to do, and you know it.
By signing this bill, you will have the unending support of myself, my family, and my community.
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