Editor’s Note: The proponents of a new ballot measure seeking qualification released the following text Tuesday. In the interest of information, we are publishing its text below. The views below do not necessarily represent the view of The Sacramento Union Inc.

VoteYesMarriage.com , a statewide marriage protection coalition, is challenging the prejudicial title and summary issued today by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

VoteYesMarriage.com is sponsoring the Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage Initiative to protect marriage rights for one man and one woman in the California State Constitution.

“True to his liberal bias, but untrue to his constitutional duty, Bill Lockyer has dumped on us an inaccurate and prejudicial paragraph that is anything but impartial and fair as the law requires,” said Randy Thomasson, one of the organizers of VoteYesMarriage.com.  “Once again, Bill Lockyer is derelict of duty.  We will challenge him in court within the next few days.”

Lockyer’s title and summary of the Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage Initiative is replete with errors, omissions, and negative, prejudicial campaigning. 

A few examples are:
• Lockyer engages in hyperbole when he inaccurately claims that the initiative would prohibit domestic partners from visiting each other in the hospital.  The fact is that, under the proposed ballot initiative, hospital visitation will remain a statutory right of registered domestic partners.  According to the Assembly analysis of AB 26, passed in 1999, the bill “requires a health facility to allow a patient’s domestic partner to visit a patient.” This right would continue to be guaranteed to domestic partners because hospital visitation is not, and never was, a statutory right of marriage reserved for only a man and a woman.

• Lockyer completely ignores the chief points of the Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage Initiative.  He omits how the proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit the abolishment of marriage, and leaves out how it would protect private organizations and businesses from being required to undermine or diminish marriage.

• Lockyer uses the word “elimination” when the whole issue is the protection of marriage, something clearly understood by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

On July 11, the Legislative Analyst’s Office described the major points of the Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage Initiative as follows:
“Major Provisions: This measure amends the State Constitution to recognize marriage only between a man and a woman.  In addition, the measure prohibits the Legislature, courts, and state and local government agencies from granting the rights of marriage to any unmarried persons.  The measure also prohibits government agencies from requiring private entities to extend the rights of marriage to unmarried persons.”

The spirit of the law and the specific duty of the Attorney General is found in the California Elections Code, Section 9051, which reads, “…the Attorney General shall give a true and impartial statement of the purpose of the measure in such language that the ballot title shall neither be an argument, nor be likely to create prejudice, for or against the proposed measure.”
“It’s not surprising that Lockyer is showing his prejudice and intolerance against marriage for a man and a woman,” said retired Assemblyman Larry Bowler, one of the organizers of VoteYesMarriage.com.  “He’s being unjustly political and showing his liberal bias big-time.”

“Bill Lockyer is a Bay Area liberal who has been pushing homosexual ‘marriage’ for a long time now,” said Bowler.  “In 1996, Lockyer personally killed Pete Knight’s marriage protection bill by sucking it into a state Senate committee, where it never received a hearing.  In 2000, Lockyer opposed Proposition 22, the Protection of Marriage Initiative, on the statewide ballot.  Last year, he dragged his feet in the San Francisco gay marriage crisis and never prosecuted the Mayor of San Francisco as the state constitution required him to.  We think a judge will be much fairer than Lockyer because protecting marriage for a man and a woman deserves respect, not ridicule.”