CALIF. WILL LIKELY SEE BILL LEGALIZING SSM AND AMENDMENT AGAINST IT: From the San Francisco Chronicle

As a state lawmaker seeks to legalize gay marriage, a church-led group has announced efforts to insert the existing definition of marriage into the California Constitution and to strip same-sex couples of domestic partner benefits. ...

The announcement came as Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, filed a bill that would allow gays to marry. At the urging of the coalition, Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, and Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, introduced constitutional amendments that would elevate the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman from statute to the constitution. ...

Four years ago, California voters passed Proposition 22, which held that the state could only recognize a marriage between a man and a woman as valid.

Since then, however, lawmakers have passed a broad array of domestic partner benefits, including a law that takes effect Jan. 1 giving same-sex couples who register as domestic partners nearly all the legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses. ...

Leno's bill, renamed the "Religious Freedom and California Civil Marriage Protection Act," would amend a section of California's family code that defines marriage as "a personal relationship arising out of a civil contract between a man and woman" to read "between two persons."

The new version of the bill contains a section that specifically says clergy members are not required to participate in a marriage ceremony against their beliefs.

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posted by Eve at 4:11 PM VOTE

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