California
governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been making news lately
for his embrace of the gay political group Log Cabin
Republicans, who will honor him at a fund-raiser next
Thursday in Los Angeles. But gays and lesbians in San
Francisco want him to know they are not happy with the
governor's veto of a same-sex marriage bill last
year. According to the San Francisco Chronicle,
Schwarzenegger is this year's recipient of the
"Pink Brick" award, a raspberry handed out
annually by organizers of the San Francisco gay pride
parade, which will take place this Sunday. In being
considered for the brick, Schwarzenegger scored well ahead
of the second-place finisher, the notoriously antigay
Christian group Concerned Women for America. The
onetime mega-movie star received nearly a third of
the 3,043 mail-in ballots cast. Last year's brick
winner was U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein, who said
that the push for same-sex marriage in 2004 was
"too much, too fast, too soon," implying that
the issue had cost the Democrats the 2004 presidential
election. "It's just another way to put
pressure on a leader to look at our community...and take our
issues seriously," Lindsey Jones, executive
director of the San Francisco pride parade, told the
Chronicle. The brick wasn't the only snub
Schwarzenegger received for having vetoed the same-sex
marriage bill, authored by gay California assemblyman
Mark Leno. Organizers of gay pride events in San
Diego, Long Beach, and elsewhere declined to publish the
greeting and letter of appreciation that
Schwarzenegger sent out last month ahead of the pride
celebrations. Asked about his refusal to back same-sex
marriages during a Web cam conversation with the public on
Tuesday, Schwarzenegger--whose chief of staff,
Susan Kennedy, is a lesbian--emphasized his
support for domestic-partner rights. But he said
voters had sent a loud and clear "no" in 2000
when they passed Proposition 22, which reaffirmed the
state's definition of marriage as being the
union of a man and a woman. (The Advocate)