California gay rights timeline

As gays and lesbians have fought for rights and won elected office, public opinion has shifted. Back in 1977, singer Anita Bryant of Florida was leading a Bible-based campaign against homosexuals, claiming they were sinners and a threat to children and family life. When pollsters asked more than 1,000 Californians – face to face, in their homes – whether they agreed with her, 45 percent said yes. Emotions still run high on the issue, but more Californians now say they know gays and lesbians, and approve of same-sex marriage. The shift is particularly pronounced among residents ages 18 to 29. Following are notable twists and turns in the history of California’s gay rights movement.

1951: The Mattachine Society, one of the first gay advocacy organizations in the United States, is incorporated in Los Angeles to combat oppression of homosexuals.

1955: The Daughters of Bilitis, a national lesbian organization, is founded in San Francisco.

1961: José Sarria runs for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming what is believed to be the nation’s first openly gay candidate for public office.

1975: Assembly Bill 489, by Assemblyman Willie Brown, decriminalizes sexual acts performed in private by consenting adults in California.

1977: The state Legislature overwhelmingly votes to define civil marriage as a contract between a man and a woman. Harvey Milk later becomes the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

1978: Voters defeat Proposition 6, the Briggs initiative, named for Sen. John Briggs, which would have barred gays, lesbians and their supporters from teaching in public schools.

1979: Gov. Jerry Brown issues an executive order barring discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation.

1984: Gov. George Deukmejian vetoes Assembly Bill 1, the first bill that would have banned job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

1989: Senate Bill 202, by Sen. Diane Watson, requires law enforcement agencies to report hate crimes, including those in which a motivating factor is the victim’s sexual orientation.

1991: Gov. Pete Wilson vetoes Assembly Bill 101, by Assemblyman Terry Friedman, prohibiting discrimination against gays in the workplace.

1992: Wilson signs Friedman’s narrower measure, Assembly Bill 2601, which adds sexual orientation protections to the Labor Code.

1994: Sheila Kuehl is elected to the Assembly, becoming the state Legislature’s first openly lesbian or gay member.

1999: Assembly Bill 26, by Assemblywoman Carole Migden, creates the first statewide domestic partnership registry, allowing the partners of gay state employees to receive health benefits.

1999: Assembly Bill 1001, by Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, adds sexual orientation to anti-discrimination provisions of the state Fair Employment and Housing Act.

1999: Assembly Bill 537, by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, makes it illegal to harass students in public schools because of sexual orientation.

2000: Voters pass Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage.

2001: Migden’s Assembly Bill 25 greatly expands the rights of domestic partners to include health benefits through private group insurance, death benefits, sick leave, tax deductions and adoption of stepchildren.

2002: The nation’s first legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus is formed in the Legislature. It comprises Assembly members Kuehl, Migden, Jackie Goldberg and Christine Kehoe.

2002: John Laird and Mark Leno are elected to the Assembly, becoming the first openly gay men in the Legislature and members of the LGBT Caucus.

2003: Assembly Bill 205 by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg extends to registered domestic partners nearly all the same rights and responsibilities provided to opposite-sex spouses in California.

2004: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom orders city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. More than 4,000 couples receive licenses and are married before the California Supreme Court orders a halt to the process until its constitutionality can be determined.

2004: Assembly Bill 2208, by Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe, bars insurance providers from discriminating against domestic partners.

2005: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoes Assembly Bill 849, by Assemblyman Mark Leno, which would have legalized same-sex marriage. Schwarzenegger urged gay rights advocates to wait for court rulings on Proposition 22 or ask the voters to repeal the ban.

2008: In a 4-3 decision May 16, the California Supreme Court rules that the state constitution gives gays and lesbians the right to marry. On Nov. 4, voters approve Proposition 8, the ban that’s now being challenged.

Sources: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life; the American Civil Liberties Union; Encyclopedia Britannica; World Book Encyclopedia; Bee news archives.

Bee research/Aurelio Rojas, Pete Basofin and Micaela Massimino.

See California gay rights timeline
Sacramento Bee – CA, USA

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/california-ga…

Marine General Questions Obama Plan to Study Gay Ban, Scholars Concur that More Study is Unnecessary and Could Have Political Costs

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A retired Brigadier General for the U.S. Marine Corps has questioned the Obama administration’s plan to form a Pentagon commission to study “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” said General Hugh Aitken. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.” Aitken participated in a comprehensive 2008 review of the policy which found that there is no evidence showing that openly gay service would harm the military, and a great deal of evidence showing it would not.

According to a February 1st Boston Globe report, the Obama administration has decided not to move forward on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” until the Pentagon can “undertake a detailed study of how a change in the policy would affect the military.” This may not happen for several months or longer, says the Globe article.

But scholars echoed General Aitken’s argument. Dr. Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the Palm Center and author of the forthcoming book, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, said he has reviewed “all of the evidence on gays in the military, and there is simply no question about whether or not a policy change would undermine unit cohesion. It would not.”

Dr. Laura Miller, a well-respected military sociologist who co-authored a study on gays in the military with the late Charles Moskos, author of the gay ban, said, “you don’t need a commission to tell you that you need to retain every able, trained, experienced and productive member at a time when both the stakes and the manpower needs are high.”

Dr. Gary Gates, a UCLA scholar who has authored a number of studies on gays in the military, agreed that “the proposal to study ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ yet again seems unnecessary. Extensive scholarly research already shows that allowing the 65,000 gays and lesbians currently in uniform to serve openly will not harm the military in any way.”

Professor Diane Mazur, a former Air Force officer who teaches at the University of Florida and who has published widely on gays in the military, added that “every research study published over the last fifteen years has concluded that military readiness is not harmed — and may be strengthened — when all qualified Americans can serve and no one has to live in secrecy.”

Relevant research includes an extensive 1993 study by the RAND corporation as well as two official military studies: a 1989 study by the Defense Personnel Security Research Center and the Navy’s 1957 Crittenden report. It also includes numerous academic studies published in leading military journals such as International Security, Armed Forces and Society, and Parameters, the official journal of the U.S. Army War College. Most recently, a bi-partisan panel of retired flag officers, which included General Aitken, released a report last year which found that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was unnecessary and harmful to the military. All these studies reached the same conclusion: that allowing open gay service would not undermine the military.

Frank’s new book, which is being called the definitive story of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” chronicles the history of the 1993 debates over gay service and shows that, even then, the word “study” quickly became code for “delay and kill.” “Sam Nunn said any review of the gay ban should begin with a ‘Pentagon study’,” said Frank. “Colin Powell said the president should move cautiously and ‘study’ the issue; Bob Dole said the president should appoint a ‘study commission’; and ultimately President Clinton called for a 6-month ‘study’ period. The result was ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ which has made no one happy. I think there’s a lesson here.”

Dr. Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center and a nationally recognized expert on gay service, said that President Obama has stroke-of-the-pen authority to suspend gay discharges because, while the law mandates discharge if a “finding” is made of homosexual conduct, nothing in the law requires that such a finding be made. Given CNN’s December 2008 poll showing 81 percent public approval for open gay service, Belkin said, Obama should not hesitate to end the policy by executive order.

“Ironically, Obama’s careful effort to avoid Clinton’s mistakes could cause him to repeat them,” he said. “When President Clinton called a time-out to study the situation, that allowed opposition forces time to rally. In some cases, the Pentagon just needs to be told what to do.” Belkin said he has been told privately by top military officials that in cases like this one, they often prefer to be told what to do. “They know it’s the right step,” he said, “and sometimes they’d rather it be made for them.”

The Palm Center is a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Center uses rigorous social science to inform public discussions of controversial social issues, enabling policy outcomes to be informed more by evidence than by emotion. Its data-driven approach is premised on the notion that the public makes wise choices on social issues when high-quality information is available. For more information, visit www.palmcenter.ucsb.edu.

Published by

Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/marine-genera…

New York Appellate Court Decision Affirming Out-Of-State Marriage Recognition

‘Yet another appellate court has ruled that government officials act lawfully when they respect out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.’

(New York, January 5, 2009) — A decision last week from the New York Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed dismissal of a case brought by antigay Arizona group the Alliance Defense Fund and confirmed that Westchester County Executive Spano lawfully recognized out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.

The Court said in its decision: …”The Executive Order at issue here requires that same-sex marriages be recognized to ‘the maximum extent allowed by law.’ By its terms, therefore, the Executive Order can never require recognition of such a marriage where it would be outside the law to do so. Since it is within the authority of the County Executive ‘[t]o see that the laws of the state, pertaining to the affairs and government of the county…are executed and enforced within the county’) the Executive Order is not illegal.”

“Yet another appellate court has ruled that government officials act lawfully when they respect out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples,” said Susan Sommer, Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal. “The Alliance Defense Fund has wasted the courts’ time and taxpayers’ money in their years of consistently unsuccessful cases attacking these marriages in New York and the government officials who refuse to discriminate against lesbian and gay New Yorkers.”

In February 2008, in Martinez v. County of Monroe, the Appellate Division, Fourth Department in Rochester, also upheld application of the marriage recognition rule to valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples. Today’s decision comes after four ADF losses at the trial court level and is the first New York Appellate Court ruling on their cases challenging marriage recognition. The ADF, on behalf of several Westchester County taxpayers, challenged County Executive Spano’s June 6, 2006 Executive Order No. 3, which directs, “each and every department, board, agency, and commission of the County of Westchester under my jurisdiction to recognize same sex marriages lawfully entered into outside the State of New York in the same manner as they currently recognize opposite sex marriages for the purposes of extending and administering all rights and benefits belonging to these couples, to the maximum extent allowed by law.” In March 2007, the lower court ruled that Spano’s order was legally issued and consistent with New York law. That ruling was appealed. In oral argument on June 23, 2008, Lambda Legal represented Westchester County couple Michael Sabatino and Robert Voorheis, who had married in Canada and were permitted to intervene as defendants in the case.

“Today the court has re-affirmed that our relationship will be honored in the community where we live and where we make our life together as a married couple,” said Sabatino. “It is a relief to know that we will continue to enjoy the rights and benefits of our marriage.”

In July, Attorney General Cuomo, on behalf of Governor Paterson, filed a motion to dismiss a similar case brought by the Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF, on behalf of a group of taxpayers, challenged Governor Paterson’s May 14, 2008 directive that state agencies respect out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples, consistent with long-standing

New York law. The court granted Lambda Legal’s motion to intervene in the case on behalf of Peri Rainbow and Tamela Sloan, long-time public employees who are raising a special needs child adopted from foster care. The couple depends on the protections that come from respect for their marriage. On September 2, 2008, the New York Supreme Court (Bronx trial court) dismissed the lawsuit, ensuring that couples will continue to be treated equally in New York State.