ay marriage initiative. (Schwarzenegger also signed a bill he had vetoed last year to celebrate the late San Francisco lawmaker and gay rights activist Harvey Milk. The law designates May 22, Milk's birthday, as a day of "special recognition.")
Schwarzenegger's approval of SB 54 follows sharply critical remarks from California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the state's ballot initiative process. Proposition 8, approved last November, invalidated a May 2008 California Supreme Court decision that overturned the state's prohibition on same-sex marriage, saying that it violated the state constitution's equal protection clause. In a speech before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, George lambasted the California initiative process, stating it "rendered our state government dysfunctional."
The Los Angeles Times reported that George specifically compared Proposition 8 and another successful ballot box measure that created new regulations of chickens.
"Chickens gained valuable rights in California on the same day that gay men and lesbians lost them," he said.
The action by Schwarzenegger also comes on the heels of a Dallas judge who ruled that two men married in Massachusetts can pursue a divorce in the state of Texas, despite the state's ban on same-sex marriage.
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