July 11, 2005
Urgent Alert!
Liberal Legislators Are
Trying to Resurrect AB-19
to Legalize Same Sex Marriage in California!
Hearings are July 12th. Please Contact Key Senators Immediately!
Summary of the Problem
A group of state legislators is using a parliamentary maneuver to try to resurrect legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in California. They have inserted the language of the bill that we defeated a month ago, AB-19, that would have done this into a different and unrelated bill. This new bill, AB-849, has already passed the Assembly and is sitting in the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on this new version of AB 19 on Tuesday afternoon, July 12.
YOUR URGENT ACTION IS NEEDED TO OPPOSE THIS BILL! IT IS A SEROUS THREAT TO MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA!
Action Needed
Supporters of traditional marriage need to immediately contact the 7 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and urge them not to permit this parliamentary maneuver and to oppose AB-849, the resurrected version of AB-19.
On our Web site we provide complete contact information for these 7 senators. We also provide a feature on this page that will allow you to send a suggested e-mail to all seven with just the click of your mouse. It takes just a few minutes. Click here or, if you would like more information, we have provided additional brief background below.
Brief Background
AB-19, which would have legalized same-sex marriage in California, was defeated on several votes in the Assembly in early June. This legislation, if passed, would have directly defied the will of the majority of Californians who voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 22 in 2000 to keep marriage in our state only between a man and a woman.
Because AB-19 did not pass by the June 3rd deadline for bills to be considered this year, it should have been dead for the remainder of this legislative session. However, proponents of same-sex marriage have used a parliamentary maneuver called “gut and amend” to try to resurrect AB-19. This tactic involves taking an unrelated bill that has already passed the Assembly, in this case AB-849, a marine research bill, and gutting the original language and replacing it with the text of AB-19.
This resurrected bill could be considered by the Senate and go back to the Assembly even though the original bill was defeated there previously. This maneuver is not uncommon but it is hardly ever used to resurrect a bill that has already been defeated by the Assembly.
THIS PARLIAMENTARY MANEUVER CREATES A SEROUS THREAT TO MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA!
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the “new” bill AB-849, which is really the old AB-19, on Tuesday afternoon, July 12th. All Californians, whether or not they are constituents of these senators, should contact them immediately. Complete contact information is provided on a special page on our Web site. This page also has a feature that allows you to e-mail a suggested message, which you can modify, to all seven senators with one click of your mouse. It takes just a couple of minutes.
Please Take Action Immediately!
Please Forward This Alert On To Others!
United Families California • PO Box 7653 • La Verne, CA 91750-9998