November 17, 2008
Catania Confident in D.C. Gay Marriage Bill's Prospects
D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-large) reassured local gay and lesbian business owners over the weekend that despite the success of initiatives like Prop 8 in California and other states, he's confident that a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia will pass the D.C. Council next year.
Catania addressed the 2008 GLBT Economic Development Summit at the Washington Plaza Hotel on Saturday. He is one of two openly gay members of the D.C. Council.
In a brief interview with DCist, Catania reaffirmed that a same-sex marriage bill will be introduced to the Council in January, and that he is sure it will pass.
"Many of us on the Council believe that there is no better time that exists than now," Catania said.
Much of the concern about the viability of D.C.'s marriage equality bill has been whether the success of California's Prop 8, which repealed same-sex marriage in the state, would mean that Congress might feel compelled to veto the legislation. With Democratic gains in both the House and the Senate, Congress will certainly be friendlier to the issue in January, but that's still no guarantee the bill won't be derailed after it passes the Council and is signed by Mayor Fenty.
Photo by ann gav
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This fact make this move much more risky for some council members:
"70 percent – of black voters in California who voted for Proposition 8 and helped secure its passage, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International."
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OK, this is kind of an interesting coincidence
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That's all fine and dandy, but it's ironic and kind of sad that Catania's such a douche that nobody would EVER want to marry him.
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Warden Samuel Norton Congressman Don Young: Nothing passes. Nothing... or you will do the hardest time there is. No more protection from the Wingnuts. I'll pull you out of that one-bunk Hilton and cast you down with the Sodomites. You'll think you've been f*cked by a train! And the needle exchange program? Gone... sealed off, brick-by-brick. We'll have us a little hypo barbecue in the yard. They'll see the flames for miles. We'll dance around it like wild Injuns! You understand me? Catching my drift?... Or am I being obtuse?
[beat]
Congressman Young: [to Hadley] Give him another month to think about it.
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Hey man, the strike coding worked in the preview pane! There's supposed to be a line through "Warden Samuel Norton."
Stupid html. It's like The Man, always keeping DC down.
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DC would be a first -- the first jurisdiction to enact gay marriage (eschewing the "civil unions" figleaf) via the legislative process, not through the courts. That would truly be an achievement. It would be interesting to see how that plays out via DOMA, which bars all federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Since DC is a de facto subdivision of the federal government, it could set up a potential court challenge to DOMA itself--and that would be a good thing, IMHO.
The Dems in Congress can simply let a gay marriage bill become law. Unless both houses of Congress act affirmatively, DC Council bills become law after a set number of days that congress is in sesssion. Congress doesn't have to "approve" gay marriage, it just needs to sit on its hands. The minority can't do much about it, except fulminate.
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Maybe if the HRC would get off it's lazy ass, stop throwing fundraising cocktail parties that give awards to such heroes as Lance Bass and only spending $3.4 Million while the Mormon community donated over $20 million
Blame the blacks all you want, but I squarely blame the gay organization that is not spreading the message and educating/trying to persuade voters on this issue.
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Any true Republican in Congress would step aside and put the sticker of "state's rights" onto this issue if it passed and call it a day. Though, DC isn't a state and Republicans are namby-pamby-wannna-be-we-love-Rove-ites... Can I copyright that word?
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I am also confident of my prospects of waking up tomorrow morning the richest man in the world.
Seriously, does anyone think all those moderate-to-conservative House Dems representing districts Bush and McCain carried are ever going to vote for this? One of a president's chief political duties is to protect congressional representatives of his own party. Obama's no fool. He'd never put those so-called Blue Dog Dems in a position where they'd have to vote on this. Except for Dubya in '02, the president's party loses seats in his first midterm election. Putting this up for a vote will merely ensure they lose more than average. There were Democratic gains in the House, but not the kind to get Congress to approve any attempt by DC to legalize gay marriage.
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Blackcloud: There is no need for a vote. Congress wouldn't have to vote affirmatively for it, they just have to not affirmatively vote against it.
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Blackcloud: There is no need for a vote. Congress wouldn't have to vote affirmatively for it, they just have to not affirmatively vote against it.
Right, they don't have to vote at all. They don't even have to vote "present." There would be nothing to vote on, thereby sparing the "Blue Dogs." The leadership doesn't bring a bill to the floor, or allow an anti-DC-gay-marriage amendment to ride along on any other piece of pending legislation. The majority has broad discretion in the House, all they have to do is nothing, something Congress has a lot of practice doing. The clock runs out due to Congressional inaction and DC gets same-sex marriage. There is an argument for getting this out of the way ASAP, so it doesn't fuel the "culture wars" during the 2010 elections.
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Why so confident? We have already learned that, statistically, the black community is against same-sex marriage. And black community is the majority in DC; this fact will surely sway opinions about the case. And this all strikes me as odd. I mean shouldn't black Americans understand the pain caused ignorance and bigotry more than anyone? I guess gay is the NEW black!
Also agree with ces12, the ineptness and self-serving nature of the gay organizations (such as HRC) is sickening. HRC is a bunch of useless dimwits.
We’ll see about this….
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@ledroitist - I hear your point that Congress wouldn't have to vote on gay marriage per se, but isn't the typical process Congress uses to block the will of DC voters to hold up a vote on the federal payment to DC?
I'm not as concerned about local support - after the recent backlash, I would doubt the LDS would be inclined to fundraise for new ads associating marriage equality with the teaching about same-sex marriage in schools. I think public disinformation played a large role in Prop 8's passage.
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We have already learned that, statistically, the black community is against same-sex marriage. And black community is the majority in DC; this fact will surely sway opinions about the case.
Well count the votes:
I think you can count on yes votes from the following CMs:
Catania
Graham
Mendelson
Evans
Cheh
Wells
All you need is one more yes. (Of course had we elected Mara instead of Brown, he'd be the seventh vote). I think Bowser may be friendly to it. And Kwame Brown might recognize that a vote against it could lose him a lot of Ward 1,2, and 3 votes (although he'd have four years to mend fences)
Who knows? Maybe no CM wants to be on the wrong side of history and all of them will vote for it, notwithstanding other considerations.
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I'm more curious about tomorrow's vote count on the Nickels nomination after today's negative committee recommendation. Michael Brown was undecided on this point during a recent Ward 3 forum, but it looks like at least Alexander, Mendelson, and Cheh are against. Considering Nickels still hasn't found a place to call home within the borders of DC, I'd bet there are at least a few more 'no' votes out there.