FROM ABC NEWS – By TEDDY DAVIS
May 5, 2009
Same-sex marriage backers in California, anticipating a loss in court, are preparing to make their case at the ballot box in 2010 rather than waiting until 2012.
In this file photo, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks to reporters in Palo Alto, Calif. Newsom, a Democrat, is running for governor of California in the 2010 race.
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
"The right time is now," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told ABC News. "And if that means going back in 2010, I couldn’t be more supportive."
"Wait almost always means never," he added, invoking Martin Luther King Jr.
California voters approved Proposition 8 in November, a change to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Although a decision has not yet been rendered in the legal challenge to Proposition 8, many gay marriage proponents in California expect the state Supreme Court to uphold the voter-approved ban on new gay marriages while leaving intact the gay marriages performed in 2008 when a decision of the state’s High Court had temporarily legalized the practice.
The inclination on the part of Newsom, who is running for governor next year, to push for gay marriage in 2010 is in step with the thinking of Rick Jacobs, the chairman of the Courage Campaign, a liberal grassroots organization that is at the center of deciding when gay marriage advocates will launch their next campaign.
