Pro-Marriage Equality Initiative Filed

"Ooo and it's alright and it's comin' 'long"

Yesterday, March 19, 2009, the California Secretary of State provided an official summary for a proposed initiative (the "California Marriage Equality Act") to re-amend the state constitution to restore same-sex couples' equal right to marry. Proponents will now have until August 19 to gather the not quite 700,000 signature required to qualify it to go before the voters. Besides repealing the section of the California Constitution added by Proposition 8, the measure specifies -- apparently to forestall some of the chief fear tactics used in the Yes on 8 campaign -- that it shall not be interpreted to change school curricula or force clergy to perform services or duties "incongruent with their faith."