Gov.’s Taken Himself Out of the Game on Same-Sex Marriage

It’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s turn at bat on same-sex marriage, but he’s stepping aside and calling for a pinch-hitter: the judiciary or the electorate.

He doesn’t seem to care which.

That’s disappointing, because Californians deserve to know where their governor stands on one of the most controversial social issues of our time.

And we really don’t know. In fact, we can’t be sure that he stands anywhere, except in a place to avoid getting hit by a pitch. He has taken a weak-kneed position.

The politics are too obvious.

If Schwarzenegger had stunned the political world and signed the same-sex marriage bill that the Assembly sent him Tuesday, his Republican base would have gotten cranky and perhaps crumbled at a time when he needed it most. He has called a special election for November that hardly anyone outside his base wants.

That was the conventional prophecy. There was another vision that Democrats had been seeing in their worst nightmares: If Schwarzenegger had signed the bill, it could have resurrected his image as a unique, unpredictable centrist -- not just another poll-taking, ego-driven pol. The base would have been crusty, but stayed intact, because it also needed him. And he’d lure back Democrats and independents.

We’ll never know, because Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that he’ll veto the measure.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed the potential risks and gains for the governor. Likely voters split 46% to 46% over same-sex marriage. But 56% of both Democrats and independents favored it, while 68% of Republicans were opposed.

Schwarzenegger should have signed the bill -- if he believed in it. But it’s not clear what he believes.

The governor has said he opposes same-sex marriage -- but never has said why, except that the voters once were against it. If they changed their minds, that’d be fine too, he has said.

He has been all over the field.

The background: 61% of voters in 2000 passed an initiative -- Proposition 22 -- to recognize only heterosexual marriages. That measure, say sponsors of the current bill, affected just people married out of state. The bill, by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), would allow same-sex couples to be married inside California.

In a case that resulted from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s allowing same-sex couples to marry, a Superior Court judge ruled that Prop. 22 is unconstitutional. The ruling is being appealed.

Schwarzenegger’s veto announcement, by his press office, said the governor believes there’s no more noble cause than civil rights, and “gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law.”

But: “The people voted and the issue is now before the courts. 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. We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote.”

Either way -- the court or the people -- Schwarzenegger is completely dismissing two branches of government: his own and the legislative. He’s sloughing off a hot issue and doesn’t care who handles it.

“If the people change their minds and want to overrule [Prop. 22], that’s fine with me,” he told Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” last year.

Interviewed on “Hardball With Chris Matthews” in March, Schwarzenegger said: “I don’t believe in gay marriage.” He didn’t explain why, except: “The people have voted already.”

The governor also told Matthews he favors domestic partnerships, in which California grants same-sex couples many of the protections of marriage. Then he added: “Remember, things change.... As we go on, people will be feeling more comfortable with the idea of domestic partnership and also marriage.”

Where’s his current comfort level? Does he have a view about the implications of same-sex marriage?

As for the people, they’re not always right. In 1964, the California electorate voted to retain racial discrimination in housing after the Legislature had voted to abolish it. Courts later ruled that the discrimination was unconstitutional.

And Schwarzenegger doesn’t always listen to the people. They voted to earmark specific tax funds for schools and transportation. But he dipped into those money pots to balance his budgets.

With same-sex marriage, as other issues, Schwarzenegger disregards the republican system of government created by the founders: people’s elected representatives exercising power through a legislature.

Yet, he habitually rakes the Legislature for refusing to act. In his same-sex chat with Matthews, Schwarzenegger said: “That’s what makes this state interesting. We have different kinds of opinions. And ... if the legislators are not willing to solve those problems, I think you should give it to the people and let them make the decision.”

In denouncing Mayor Newsom, Schwarzenegger said changing the marriage law is “something that the legislators can do, the people can do or the court can do, but not individual mayors.”

OK, the Legislature acted. It sent him a bill.

There are credible reasons to veto it. But he should give a better reason than some vague notion of legislative unconstitutionality.

He could say, as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein did after last November’s election, that “the whole issue has been too much, too fast, too soon and people aren’t ready for it.”

But he shouldn’t be ducking out of the batter’s box and calling for a pinch-hitter. That’s like striking out.