The California Assembly passed legislation Tuesday allowing same-sex couples to marry despite a threat by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that he will veto the measure, as he did with the last bill.The Assembly voted 42 - 34 along party lines. The legislation now moves to the Senate where it is also expected to pass.
"By denying a group of individuals the right to marry, we denigrate that entire group and deny them citizenship," Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) the bill's author said as he led off debate.
Lawmakers passed a nearly identical bill in 2005 - becoming the first legislative body in the nation to approve a measure allowing same-sex couples to marry - but it was vetoed by the governor who argued the issue should be decided by voters or the state Supreme Court.
Schwarzenegger said in February that if the second bill passed the legislature he would veto it also.
Called the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act it would amend the Family Code to define marriage as a civil contract between two persons instead of a civil contract between a man and a woman, and again reaffirms that no religious institution would be required to solemnize marriages contrary to its fundamental beliefs.
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