At-Large D.C. Council member David Catania (I) will introduce legislation to extend full marriage rights to same-sex couples in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
Catania announced his intention to put forward the long-expected “Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009” at a meeting of almost 200 LGBT activists at the True Reformer building on U Street NW Wednesday night.
“We are going to do it now,” Catania told the enthusiastic crowd. “We are going to do it now, not only for ourselves, but for the young people who are now 20 years old, or 16, or 13.”
The bill will have nine co-sponsors, Catania said, making its passage at the Council level all but assured. Catania was joined at the meeting by fellow D.C. Council members Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Michael A. Brown (I-At Large).
“We pretty much know what the Council is going to do,” said Mendelson, who was behind legislation passed earlier this year that extended marriage recognition to same-sex couples who were married legally elsewhere. Mendelson also chairs the Council’s judiciary committee, which has jurisdiction over the current bill.
Draft language of the proposal takes pains to exempt religious groups from performing same-sex marriages if it would be in violation of “the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Much of the discussion Wednesday night focused on how best to avoid Congressional intervention in the matter. Permanent laws passed by the D.C. Council and signed by the mayor are subject to a 30-day review period by Congress.
Still pending is a petition from anti-same-sex marriage activist Bishop Harry Jackson to place the issue on a citywide ballot as a referendum. Both Catania and Mendelson said they were unconcerned about the possibility that the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics might change its position from a previous decision which ruled that ballot initiatives that violate the city’s Human Rights Act by permitting discrimination based on sexual orientation must not be allowed.
A public hearing on the bill is expected this fall.
