County Board Votes to Oppose State Ballot’s Marriage Initiative

Citing the “divisive” consequences of recent state ballot propositions, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors narrowly voted to oppose an initiative that would bind California to legally recognize only marriages between a man and a woman.

“How many gay men do you want to see beaten up on the prairies of America before you come to realize that some of these propositions really do much more damage than they do any help?” asked Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky moments before the board voted 3 to 2 to oppose the ballot measure, Proposition 22, sponsored by state Sen. William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale).

“I do not see any need for this Knight initiative,” said the Rev. James G. Lawson, a civil rights leader, adding that he has been happily married for 40 years and that society has attempted to regulate matrimony in the past to deny it to slaves or between members of different ethnicities.

California law already recognizes only marriages between a man and a woman, and opponents of the initiative charge that its true intention is to allow legal challenges to a number of corporations and government entities that extend benefits to domestic partners of their employees. They point out that in other states that have passed similar initiatives, such as Washington, Florida and Idaho, legal challenges to domestic partnership benefits have been launched.

But supporters say the initiative is necessary because other states may recognize gay marriages that, without the initiative, would then become valid in California.

“This gives the people of California the right to decide this issue, not the courts of another state,” said Sean Hanna, 30, a West Los Angeles businessman.

The board split along party lines on the vote.

The issue came before the supervisors on the recommendation of the county Human Relations Commission, which in a 5-3 vote last month urged the board to go on record as opposing the initiative. Yaroslavsky, a Democrat whose Westside and San Fernando Valley district includes many gay and lesbian residents, placed that recommendation on the board’s agenda.

Fellow Democrats Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke joined Yaroslavsky in opposing the initiative.

“We know what happens when these kinds of measures are placed on the ballot,” Burke said.

Molina, referring to a 1994 ballot initiative designed to deny most government benefits to illegal immigrants, said: “This is a very divisive initiative in the way that [Proposition] 187 was very divisive.”

But Republicans Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe argued that the initiative is harmless.

“This proposition does not take away anyone’s existing civil rights,” Antonovich said.

Knabe called the initiative unneeded but said he has been “an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage,” and voted against Yaroslavsky’s motion.

Although the supervisors’ positions were known from the start of the meeting, advocates on both sides of the issue still sought their support.

“I am puzzled as to how anybody could imply that a proposition that simply states that only the marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California causes discrimination against anyone,” said Vito Cannella, a past president of the county’s Human Relations Commission and one of the dissenters in its 5-3 vote.

Jennifer Pizer, an attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, rattled off the names of half a dozen states where challenges to existing protections for gays have been mounted after the passage of measures similar to the Knight initiative.

“It’s clear that any law or policy providing basic protection for gay couples is at risk with measures like this,” she said.

And Joe Hicks, director of the city of Los Angeles’ Human Relations Commission, said his panel had successfully urged the City Council to oppose the initiative too.