Summary: The Cathedral City city council will be voting tomorrow on a resolution supporting marriage equality. Though the item is on consent, it puts Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and freshman Council member Stan Henry in a potentially difficult spot: which constituency do they want to piss off? Do they want to precipitate an explosion from the religious right? Would they prefer instead to send a message to Cathedral city’s queerfolk that we should get our butts to the back of the municipal bus? With increasing numbers of Republicans now coming out in support of marriage equality, DeRosa in particular is in a tough spot. If she cites her Roman Catholic religion as grounds for opposition, she will put herself in a place where she can be criticized not only on sectarian grounds but also on constitutional ones as well. For Kathleen Joan DeRosa, this resolution represents a “drill,” a political dilemma in which any vote she casts will anger at least one significant constituency she needs to hold on to if she is to remain a viable politician.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Tomorrow evening, the Cathedral City city council will have before it a proposed resolution supporting full civil marriage equality for all persons, including LGBT couples. The presence of the resolution on tomorrow evening’s agenda has already begun to stir some controversy.
The item appears as item number 5 on the so-called consent agenda. Items on consent are usually voted on in a single omnibus motion, without being discussed individually.
Placing an item on consent often functions as a way of providing political cover for an office holder who may be less than enthusiastic about the item in question, but who does not want to spend a lot of time putting his or her objections on the record.
Current political scuttlebutt in Cathedral City is that there are probably three votes to adopt the resolution: Councilmembers Greg Pettis, Chuck Vasquez, and Sam Toles. Incumbent Cathedral City Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa and freshman councilmember Stan Henry are believed to represent the potential “no” votes.
In a sense, both DeRosa and Henry find themselves in a politically perilous position. In just the last few days, there has been a distinct swing in Republican opinion in favor of marriage equality. Even former Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has joined sometime GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman and a variety of other prominent Republicans in coming out, so to speak, for the freedom to marry. DeRosa and Henry now find themselves caught in what California political parlance calls a “drill,” in which any vote they take will significantly piss off an important constituency. To remain a viable politician, DeRosa must be able to hold both the religious right and that portion of Cathedral city’s queer community which she has thus far successfully bamboozled into supporting her.
Neither DeRosa nor Henry have the luxury of abstaining or voting “present.” California law withholds from local elected officials the luxury of being able to weasel out of a controversial vote that members of the Legislature enjoy. (The hypocrisy of the Legislature on this, and many other matters, will be the subject of a future post.) DeRosa and Henry have no choice, they must take a position on marriage equality. The best they can hope for is to be able to hide their vote inside the omnibus decision on the consent agenda.
Nonetheless, for Stan Henry, we need entertain no great expectations. He has defined himself as a social conservative, and given his law enforcement background, we may expect him to bring with him to the discussion the traditional law enforcement view of itself as the curators, custodians, and guardians of what “ought” to be “correct” social and cultural values. In short, Henry may be facing a lesser degree of political peril than his political mentor.
DeRosa, on the other hand, probably does not have the wiggle room Stan Henry does. DeRosa is well known for trying to triangulate on potentially problematic political issues; her history of tergiversation is also well known to anyone who has spent more than a few fugitive seconds familiarizing him- or herself with Cathedral City politics. It is reasonably foreseeable, therefore, that DeRosa will place on the record a “no” vote with such weaselly language as “I vote no on item number five.”
Of course, while a “no” vote on the marriage equality resolution may sit well with the religious right constituency to which DeRosa has so shamelessly pandered in recent years, it would also send a very clear message to Cathedral City’s substantial queer population that DeRosa regards us as less than full, authentic citizens of this community, and that she regards our civil rights as lesser things than those of our straight neighbors, and that we should get our butts to the back of the municipal bus.
Already, DeRosa has made her opposition to marriage equality a matter of record, as when she declared that “as a Catholic” she could not support marriage equality, but that she might, just might, be able to support some kind of civil union. As I noted in my blog, “Cathedral City Observed,” at the time, such a position is unsustainable any longer as a matter of practical politics:
“Unfortunately for DeRosa, her effort to triangulate has been overtaken by events. 'Civil Unions' is no longer an acceptable Plan B fallback position. Politicians must now take unambiguous, non-triangulating, positions on whether Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David should be able to get civilly hitched and call themselves married. Marrriage, by that name, not some other, such as “Civil Unions”, is now the default position.”
(For the full post, please use this link: http://cathedralcityobserved.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-failed-effort-at-triangulation.html)
Nonetheless, like the Bourbons of France’s ancien régime, DeRosa has learned nothing and she has forgotten nothing. If she is foolish enough to oppose marriage equality on the grounds of her sectarian adherence, she will be opening herself up to a severe critique on the basis of her unwillingness to abide by the oath of office she took as mayor, which requires the oath-taker to bear “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California.” Neither the federal nor the state constitution allows for an establishment of religion. To base a policy decision upon sectarian considerations constitutes a de facto effort to “establish” a religion, and is thus impermissible.
Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. If DeRosa supports the marriage equality resolution, her religious right constituents will have a fit. Moreover, her increasingly skeptical constituents within the GLBT community may well question her motives and conclude that her support for the resolution was just more pandering of the type, kind, and character we have come to expect from her during the nine long winters of her regime. If she opposes the resolution, she will make an enemy of a great many, possibly a majority, of Cathedral City’s queerfolk and allies. Either way, she loses. Right about now it must suck to be her.
Bring on the drill.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served eight years as a member of the city Council. He was one of the first attorneys in California to litigate a marriage equality case, and he believes, like his patron saint, Paul the Apostle that “it is better to marry than to burn.” (1 Cor. 7:9) The views set forth herein are not intended as legal a device, and should not be taken or construed as such.
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