Will Bob King Kill Gay Marriage in DC?
By Jesse Barron on Saturday, 26th December 2009
Bob King is a longtime Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC) from Ward 5 in Washington, DC. He is also a proponent of letting the DC gay marriage issue go to popular vote.
Upset that the DC Board of Elections and Ethics ruled twice that the majority cannot vote on the rights of the minority, Bob King sent a letter earlier this month to all 535 members of Congress asking that they force the DC gay marriage issue to popular vote.
With the letter he attached a one-page list of bullet points outlining why DC residents should be allowed to vote on gay marriage. His basic argument was that with 416,657 registered voters in Washington, DC, the issue of gay marriage should not be left up to 13 city council members. He feels as though DC (which is not a state and has no voting power in Congress) should have the same rights as the 31 states that have voted to define marriage.
Mr. King also feels that many residents are not be fairly represented. ”Three Advisory Neighborhood Commissions have adopted joint resolutions, and over 50 individual ANC Commissioners have already signed on to the People’s Resolution calling for a citizens’ initiative on the definition of marriage in D.C. This represents over 100,000 District residents.”
Although gay marriage has already passed in DC and Congress does not seem interested in overturning it — they have 30 days from bill signing to do so — I am curious to know what happens if Congress gets together and decide the issue should be voted on by the people, even after the fact. Can they do that? I’d say no, but gay marriage was legal in California and then made illegal again.
Update: We found this local news video on the matter…
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Tags: Congress, Gay, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, LGBT, Prop 8, Washington DC
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I read somewhere that the congress has an ancient law that would allow them to override what the D.C. city council does. However, I also read that law hasn't been used in decades.
Congress always has the option of passing laws overriding DC's or preventing the DC government from spending money on certain things, and they do that fairly often. So even after this becomes law Congress could, for example, attach an amendment to some bill forcing us to hold a referendum on defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Let's hope they stay out of it.
Correct, although I think they would be very unwise to use it for this. DC is an independent city with its own functioning government, but is not part of a larger state as Maryland and Virginia both gave up land for the nation's seat of power. The city council is elected just as it is just about anywhere else, but Congress and the President can come in together and overrule and law that they make.
One thing that I have not seen mentioned much — and as I understand the law — BOTH Congress AND the President must be in agreement that they want it overturned. Maybe I misunderstood it or it's different today, but that's been my understanding. I do not know how veto and super majority overrides and all of that good stuff would come into play.
kcindc also hits the nail on the head.
My boyfriend and I now live 30 minutes outside of DC. We are seriously contemplating a move inside of the city borders if this gay marriage law sticks. The surrounding states need to start seriously thinking about how they're going to react or they may start slowly losing their gay population as their residents start deciding they want to get married.
Let's hope they will, though you know the fundie and homophobic element probably won't. Why should they when they have a fair chance of this being shot down as it has been every place it was voted on.
What really p!$$es me off is the sheer arrogance of these people thinking that it is just fine to vote on our civil rights-or anyone's for that matter. ow about we vote on the right of Afican-Americans to vote? How about we vote on the civil rights of Christians? No, because they have civil rights, just as we do.
This will have to go the route of the other civil rights movements–via the courts. This country is unfortunately too backwards and too bigoted to imagine civil rights for those of whom their narrowminded little religions don't approve.