Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed two laws that would have legalized gay marriage in California but now he says he opposes a rightwing ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage:
During his 22-year marriage to Maria Shriver, he has allegedly consorted with prostitutes, fathered at least one out-of-wedlock child and has been accused of multiple incidents of groping female subordinates in the workplace, i.e. on movie sets.
“I will always be there to fight against that,” the governor said in San Diego at the annual convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest gay Republican group, as the attendees erupted in loud applause.
The Austrian-born governor drew laughs from the crowd when he added:
“I think we need a constitutional amendment so that a foreign-born (person) can run for president, but not against gay marriage. That would be a total waste of time.”
While Schwarzenegger’s opposition is welcome it does not lessen the hypocrisy of his vetoes. During his 22-year marriage to Maria Shriver, he has allegedly consorted with prostitutes, fathered an out-of-wedlock child and has been accused of multiple incidents of groping female subordinates in the workplace, i.e. on movie sets. So much for the “sanctity of marriage.”
Reacting to the governor’s statement, Karen England, a spokesperson for the pro-homophobia group Capitol Resource Institute, compounded the Republican hypocrisy on this issue:
“He’s always shown to be a liberal … and it’s disappointing,” she said.
England acknowledged that Schwarzenegger’s opposition to the ballot measure is a strike against the campaign to ban same-sex marriage.
“You never want someone with high-profile, movie-star quality against you,” she said. “But it won’t change the fact that Californians want marriage to be between a man and a woman.”
There’s no record of anyone in the pro-homophobia lobby calling Schwarzenegger a liberal when he vetoed the marriage laws.
On Monday, sponsors of the anti-marriage initiative claimed to have gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the November ballot:
A coalition of religious groups called Protect Marriage collected more than 1.1 million signatures in support of the amendment, said Brian Brown, executive director of the California office of the National Organization for Marriage.
The initiative needs 694,354 signatures, or 8 percent of the votes cast in the last governor’s race, to make it onto the ballot.
“We have gone against tremendous odds to do this, and now the voters in California will have the chance to protect marriage,” Brown said.
Supporters of the Limit on Marriage initiative plan to deliver their signed petitions to county registrars this week, ahead of the April 28 submission deadline set by the California Secretary of State’s Office. The signatures must be verified before the amendment can be approved for the election.
The anti-gay group’s organizers spent $1.5 million on hiring workers to gather signatures, mostly in supermarket parking lots.
Schwarzenegger stood in at the national Log Cabin Club convention for John McCain, whose campaign claimed that a scheduling conflict prevented him from speaking in San Diego.
McCain — who has actively sought the endorsement of promoters of hatred toward gay people such as the late Jerry Falwell and John Hagee — does plan to speak with the leaders of the gay GOP group behind closed doors. (Maybe in a closet somewhere?)
