ShareThisCalifornia's legislators were gay-rights trailblazers when a majority passed the first same-sex marriage bill in the United States in 2005.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, and voters passed a ban on gay marriage with Proposition 8. Now gay activists in the Golden State find themselves looking East for fresh inspiration.
In a dizzying series of events, Iowa's Supreme Court and Vermont's legislature legalized gay marriage just this month.
Now New Hampshire and New York - with the Empire State governor's blessing last week - are considering their own state laws approving marriage for same-sex couples.
Marc Solomon, marriage director for Equality California, said his group is hopeful that the Iowa decision will have an impact on public opinion in California, where the state's highest court must issue its second ruling on gay marriage rights by early June.
"Iowa is not thought of as, quote, a usual suspect. It's not Massachusetts. It's not the liberal Northeast," said Solomon, who fought for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.
Frank Schubert, the Sacramento, Calif.-based campaign director for Proposition 8, said gay activists' national strategy seems to focus on organizing heavily in states that don't have ballot-measure procedures like California's that could allow voters to foil gay marriage laws or court decisions.
"The other side certainly picked up a few victories in recent weeks," he said.
The battle over gay marriage in California has been waged for nearly a decade in all possible legal areas - in the Legislature, at the ballot box in 2000 and 2009, and the state's Supreme Court, also twice.
Californians are now waiting for justices to rule on whether voters had the right to change the state constitution last November with Proposition 8, which defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.
California's high court made history last May when it issued a 4-3 decision that gays had a constitutional right to marry - but that ruling was handed down before voters changed the constitution.
Iowa's Supreme Court referred to the California court's decision when it declared on April 3 that gays had a basic right to marry.
The National Organization for Marriage - an anti-gay-marriage group - will support attempts to overturn the Iowa court decision with a ballot initiative, said Maggie Gallagher, the group's president.
"It's not over in Iowa," she said. "From where we sit, this really energizes us. We're finding that activists are flocking to us. We're going to fight it in New Hampshire and New York. We're going to fight it everywhere."
But Gallagher acknowledged that it would far more "arduous" to challenge the Iowa court ruling at the ballot box than it was in California.
Proposition 8's Schubert, who now does work for Gallagher's group, said it would take four years to get a measure banning gay marriage through Iowa's legislature.
To put a measure on the ballot, a majority of lawmakers must vote for it twice in two legislative sessions.
"It's not going to happen," Schubert said of attempts to overturn Iowa's court ruling.
On April 7, on the heels of the Iowa decision, Vermont's legislature made Vermont the fourth state to legalize gay marriage after lawmakers garnered enough votes to override a veto by the governor.
Vermont doesn't have an initiative process, Schubert noted.
E-mail Susan Ferriss at sferriss(at)sacbee.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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