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SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A petition effort to protect traditional marriage in the California constitution has collected about 900,000 signatures and is within striking distance of qualify for the November ballot.
The figure, as of March 24, does not include several thousand more waiting to be processed. The goal is to collect at least 1.2 million signatures to account for errors.
“The numbers are good, solid,” said Ron Prentice, primary spokesman for Protect Marriage, the coalition sponsoring the effort. “We are well toward our goal. There are thousands more yet to be counted with a steady stream still coming in.”
Even so, Prentice and other Protect Marriage leaders are urging residents to keep up the push for the final few weeks of the campaign. Those with petitions still need to return them right away to ensure the measure is on the November ballot.
“The effort continues to look strong,” he said. “We will need every petition in order to meet our goals.”
Prentice said the petition effort was the strongest one ever involving church leaders and members.
“It’s amazing and we thank God for it,” he said.
Organizers set an early deadline of April 1 to receive the signatures, but allowed several extra weeks to process stragglers and assess the final vote tally. All petitions need to be turned into county registrars by April 21, Prentice said.
Andrew Pugno, a Sacramento-based attorney who represents the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, said once the petitions are turned over to the registrars they are subject to a random sample of the signatures to verify validity. If the sampling finds that there is at least 10 percent more valid signatures than required the petitions will be certified and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.
“The stronger the number (of signatures) the better in terms of how the random counting takes place,” Prentice said.
If the sample reveals a lower threshold than 10 percent, each of the signatures will have to be reviewed, a long and arduous process that will prevent the measure from making the November ballot deadline, Pugno said, adding that the next scheduled election after November isn’t until 2010.
The state of California uses a formula based on population to determine the number of signatures required for a constitutional amendment. The current requirement is 694,354, significantly higher than a basic initiative, which is subject to legal challenges and erosions by the state legislature. Such was the case with Proposition 22, which is awaiting a constitutionality ruling by the state Supreme Court. That decision is expected by early June and many Christian conservatives are fearful it will be overturned by the justices.
Avoiding challenges
Proposition 22, which contains the same language as the Protect Marriage amendment, was passed by 61 percent of the voters in 2000, but has been tied up in the courts since. At the same time, legislators have introduced bills increasing the rights of gay couples through domestic partnerships. By placing the language in the state constitution, supporters said traditional marriage will be protected from constitutional challenges.
“We need to inform people how legalizing gay-marriage would transform public education and would threaten churches with discrimination and even hate crimes.” Prentice said.
That’s why, he said, that as the petition drive winds down, the work is far from over.
“We realize that the campaign will be much more expensive and we will require the help of the church much more than ever,” he said.
That will include conducting churchwide voter registration drives and promoting the values of traditional marriage.
Supporters of the amendment fear that if same-sex marriages are legalized, pastors will be forced to perform ceremonies for gay couples or face the loss of their license or possible hate crime prosecution for preaching biblical truths from the pulpit.
The president of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, who was in California in February promoting the amendment in a series of pastoral meetings, warned that the battle over marriage goes far beyond the right to say “I do.”
“It’s not about the benefits,” Perkins told one group of pastors, meeting in Gardena. “It’s about forcing us to accept their lifestyle, it’s an allusive effort on their part to gain a sense of satisfaction and acceptance that they’ll never have as long as they are outside of God’s will.”
Perkins also warned the pastors of the danger of remaining quiet as the merits of traditional marriage and the rights of the church are slowly stripped away by government.
“I don’t think there is anything to be solved by other social programs, whether conservative or liberal, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “America’s problems are going to be solved in America’s churches. The problems we are facing are spiritual in their nature.
“Yes, they play out in the public policy arena. We are here today because the public policy debate is taking place over the institution of marriage, but, at its heart, marriage is in the state its in because the church neglected to promote God’s institution of marriage, and if we are going to see America bounce back it’s going to require America’s spiritual leaders.”
National support
Prentice said he was thankful for the support of Perkins as well as other national traditional family advocate groups, including Concerned Women for America, the Alliance Defense Fund and Focus on the Family. The support of these groups and others, Prentice said, will be vital in the coming campaign to promote the ballot amendment. He said in similar campaigns across the country, the homosexual lobby has outspent pro-family groups by at least a 3-1 margin. He anticipates a high-profile battle in the Golden State because of the national implications. California is considered a bellwether state when it comes to social policy issues.
“We will rely on a broader national effort for funding during the campaign stage,” Prentice said. “We expect that this battle in California will be fought by the opponents on a national perspective and may well be the most highly funded pro-homosexual campaign.”
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