Dateline 1863: President Schwarzenegger Vows To Veto Emancipation Proclamation

Washington (Pony Express Press): As the War between North and South rages on, President Arnold Schwarzenegger has again announced his intention to veto a bill that would emancipate the slaves throughout the American territories, based on the fact that the practice of slavery has been ratified in the states of the Confederacy in the past.

“It would be wrong for the people, and by people I mean wealthy landowners, to vote for something and for me to then overturn it,” Schwarzenegger said. “So they can send this bill down as many times as they want, I won't do it.”

This is the second year in a row that President Schwarzenegger has vetoed the emancipation bill from the Congress, refusing to offer a proclamation of his own. The bill would set free millions of colored Americans from the bonds of slavery. Some have suggested that the people actually voted for the legislators who drafted the bill, but the President, in the midst of shuttling back and forth to Gettysburg for updates on the fighting, dismissed this.

The situation was made all the more intriguing by the fact that the President's chief of staff is currently a slave. Abolitionist activists have called on the chief of staff to resign.

OK, the metaphor is getting tired, but you get the idea. But really, gay activists have called on Susan Kennedy to resign.

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER said today, that he will veto the bill legalizing same-gender civil marriage because 61% percent of California voters favored Proposition 22 in March 2000. Ms. Kennedy agreed with the Governor's decision using Prop 22 (which only bars California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside California), when he used the same excuse to veto the bill in 2005. He says he will never sign this bill. In 1948, if California voters had been allowed to vote on inter-racial marriage when the California Supreme Court struck down the anti-miscegenation law and found in favor of inter-racial marriage, over 72% of the voters would have voted against it.

Even though I, a plaintiff, am going to the California Supreme Court next year, (and the Governor has said he will "abide" by the CA Supreme Court's decision), I am not only extremely disappointed in the Governor's lack of courage, but am especially disappointed in Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff, whose "same gender wedding" I attended in Hawaii several years ago.

Since I attended Susan's wedding, why is she so against attending mine? Both Arnold and Susan know that it is unconstitutional for the majority to deny a minority equal protection under the law. To hide behind that [Prop 22] as an excuse, is cowardly and unforgivable, for both the Governor and especially for Ms. Kennedy, a lesbian. Rather then backing the Governor's decision with unacceptable excuses, I ask that Ms. Kennedy resign as Chief of Staff. If not, shame on you Susan, to side against your community, and deny civil marriage to your friends.

I wonder if she'll respond.

UPDATE: Just to show you the deception at work on the part of those who argue against two people who love each other being allowed to marry, look at this cool new feature in the Washington Post, The Claim, which takes down Sen. Brownback's silly notion that countries with lenient policies on gay marriage have all kinds of kids born out of wedlock:

Republican presidential hopeful Sam Brownback posits a strong correlation between the introduction of civil unions and same-sex marriage and the increase in the number of children being born out of wedlock. His argument appears to rely on two premises: (1) that the marriage rate has plummeted in countries that have "redefined" marriage, and (2) that the declining marriage rate has in turn resulted in a dramatic rise in the number of babies born to unmarried parents.

Both parts of Brownback's claim are questionable. The decline in marriage rates and the increase in the number of children born out of wedlock long precede attempts to "redefine" marriage by permitting civil unions and same-sex marriage. Domestic partnerships or civil unions were introduced in the District in 1992, Hawaii in 1997, Vermont and California in 2000, Maine in 2004, Connecticut in 2005, New Jersey in 2006, and Washington state this year. Only one state permits same-sex marriage: Massachusetts, since 2004.

Marriage rates in the United States have been falling steadily since at least 1960, according to the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. They have not dropped appreciably faster in the past decade than during the preceding four decades.

As support for Brownback's statement, his campaign cited articles in National Review by Stanley Kurtz, an adjunct fellow at the Hoover Institution, on marriage rates in northern Europe, particularly the Netherlands. Kurtz has also cited counties in northern Norway where 80 percent of firstborn children are born out of wedlock. Although it is true that there has been a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births in the Netherlands since domestic partnerships were introduced in 1997, there has been no appreciable increase in several other countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, that changed their marriage laws at the same time. In general, the rise in out-of-wedlock births in Europe predates changes in marriage legislation, according to the European Commission.