“Why would we want government dictating affairs of the heart?”
-Mark Leno, D-San Francisco
“How many times in legislatures across the country have debates come up where things were happening that were historic? And we may be in the middle of a sweep like that. And I realized that I owe it to my friends to stand up and verbalize that I don’t support this. And I owe it to that sweep of history to at least stand up in some small way and say I don’t think it should go this way. I don’t think we should support the bill. I don’t know if I’m right. I feel like I’m right.”
-Mike Villines, R-Clovis
“Civil rights under the law aren’t to be decided at the ballot box. They’re derived from the constitution of the United States. It doesn’t matter whether (marriage for same-sex couples) is a popular or unpopular issue. It’s our obligation to protect the rights that are guaranteed by the constitution of the United States.”
-Paul Krekorian, D-Burbank
“I don’t believe we have an equal protection issue here. Any one person in this state can marry any one other person of the opposite sex. That is something that applies universally.”
-Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine
“I appreciate the fact that we’re probably going to pass this (legislation) today and that’s just a signal of where history is going and that we’re going to be on the right side of history.”
-John Laird, D-Santa Cruz
“As a Christian I do believe that the act of homosexuality is immoral. I think that it is inappropriate to suggest that it is anything other than a choice. And I do think that because of those facts, I think it is also inappropriate to ask this government to institutionalize and recognize what is considered as an immoral choice.”
-Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia
“Domestic partnerships are a good thing, but they are not enough. Limiting the rights and obligations, for that matter, of same-sex couples to domestic partnerships continues to send the false message that somehow they are diminished in our society, and that is not the message that any of us should affirm in this house.”
-Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles
“If this is really about letting anyone who is in love get married, then why limit it? Why not have AB 43 include multiple wives and other people? If everybody in Kiwanis – I belong to Kiwanis and we all care about each other and we’re all concerned about each other – why couldn’t we as Kiwanis get married? I think this is a slippery slope…”
-Joel Anderson, R-La Mesa
“Currently it’s possible for a man and woman who may have known each other only a few hours to run off to Las Vegas and be married. And under this scenario, this couple would be afforded all the rights of marriage, no questions asked. And yet a same-sex couple who has shared a life, a home, a family for five, 10, 25 years or more, some of whom are our colleagues right here in the Legislature, are not afforded these rights. How does that protect marriage?”
-Patty Berg, D-Eureka
“Marriage is a sacred institution, and as a Christian I need to speak about this issue with the truth and I need to speak it in love and so that’s what I’m doing here. Marriage is the foundation of western civilization. Tradition is critical within a society. I think we tend, especially in California here, to kind of upend tradition and kind of throw it to the wind.”
-Ted Gaines, R-Roseville
“When I think about my family and I think about my older brother Michael, who happens to be gay, and I think about sitting across the dinner table from him or someone else’s son, daughter, brother, sister, aunt or uncle, I am not going to tell that individual that they have any less rights in this state or in this country than any one of us in this room. We all have those same rights. That is what this country is about. That is what this state is about. And that is why I am supporting this bill.”
-Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena
“Wife happens to be a derivative word of the word woman, W-O-M-A-N. Where does woman come from? Out of man. That’s why women are built structurally different than man, different rib numbers. That’s how we were created. That’s how we procreate, a man and a woman. Let’s don’t forget those things, folks.”
-Bill Maze, R-Visalia
“I’m reaching deep down into my struggle with the issue (of marriage for same-sex couples) and I’m thinking why have I been all over the place on this and I think it is because I think I was frightened or I was somehow threatened. But when you think about it, threatened about what? That two individuals of the same sex care about each other and want to be recognized, so what? And in fact to the extent that we do recognize these relationships they become more stable and more status quo and less threatening. And you begin to understand it’s not the relationship that counts. It’s the individuals.”
-Charles Calderon, D-Whittier
“No priest, no minister, no rabbi or official of any non-profit religious institution will be required to marry if it’s contrary to their first amendment beliefs. So to say that our act today is an infringement upon someone else’s first amendment right is not true? AB 43 is a right inherent upon being an American and residing in this state.”
-Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach
“We have a chance to bring equality to California, colleagues.”
-Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco
<
p>
I would have expected that dear Mr. Maze would have claimed that the word “woman” was a contraction of the phrase “woe to man,” which more than a few married men apparently believe.
<
p>
But his (false) assertion that women have different numbers of ribs than men brings to mind an interesting (true scientific) article from Scientific American from a few years ago from their Ask The Experts series, Why do men have nipples? Why indeed? The answer is quite interesting. Ain’t science wonderful?