California Dreaming

Mark Leno

Now that the California legislature has passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage the waiting period begins. What will Governor Schwarzenegger do? He has signaled that he would veto in the past, but there was hope on Tuesday. Those words of hope came in name of Tom Umberg, an assemblyman from Anaheim.

“This is one of those times when history looks upon us to see where we are. Ten years from now, there are a handful of issues that history will record where we stood, and this is one of those issues. History will record whether we pushed a bit, took the lead to encourage tolerance, to encourage equality to encourage fairness. The constituency I’m concerned about is a very small one and that’s the constituency of my three children, should they decide to look back on my record … and reflect on where I was when we could make a difference.”

The bill’s sponsor Mark Leno was once my assemblyman and today I feel sad that I can no longer call myself a Californian. I remember the first time I met Mr. Leno. It was at a party for Falcon Studios and there were pornstars everywhere mingling with politicians. I thought only in San Francisco were people this way. I’m happy to see that Mr. Leno’s passion has gone statewide.

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