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September
5, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 15Oakland,
CA
Catholic Conference aims to defeat marriage bill
A proposed law to legalize same-sex marriage, the second
attempt in the state this year, has come under attack by the California
Catholic Conference, which is promoting a lobbying campaign to defeat
the legislation.
The bill, AB 849, was written by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco)
and titled the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act. It
would redefine marriage as a personal relation arising out of a civil
contract between two persons, without regard to gender.
This proposal, according to Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California
Catholic Conference, lacks “deep concern for the common good, the
well-being of society and the general welfare of children” and “seeks
to fulfill the desires of a discrete group who want to gain society’s
imprimatur for their relationships.”
He asked legislators to reject the bill and called on Catholics to lobby
their legislators to “reject this monumental change in state law.”
Leno sponsored a similar bill, which lost in the Assembly last June. The
new proposal was on the Senate floor last week as The Voice went to press
and if approved would go back to the Assembly for concurrence.
“That’s where the fight would occur,” Dolejsi said,
noting that it was the Assembly that defeated the previous proposal. The
California Catholic Conference has written and testified in opposition
to this bill and its predecessor, he said.
Dolejsi called the new definition of marriage “radical and incoherent”
and said that if it was “loosed from its common sense gender moorings”
it would lose all meaning.
