E-mail a friendMayor Gavin Newsom
airdate July 14, 2004
Gavin Newsom was elected the 42nd Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco on December 9, 2003. He was sworn into office on January 8, 2004 by his father, the Honorable William Newsom. Mayor Newsom is a fourth generation San Franciscan who has dedicated his political career to improving the City. He was elected three times to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and served on the Board from 1997 until 2004.
Mayor Gavin Newsom
Tavis: I'm delighted to have you. And I'm glad you mentioned the Supreme Court in Massachusetts because, as you well know, if there is an enemy number one--and let me say two enemies number one on this issue as the right, the political right sees it, Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, is enemy number one, right along with the Massachusetts Supreme Court. So, what do you make of what happened today?
Newsom: I have no problem being defined by those enemies. I thought what happened today was an embarrassment to the president of the United States, an embarrassment to the leadership in the Senate, not even to receive a majority vote in a Senate that's controlled by the Republicans to me is remarkable. I didn't imagine that would have been the case. That being said, I'm pleased. I thought what the president was doing advancing this Constitutional amendment and supporting it was purely political, timed, of course, around the convention, the Democratic convention, and I don't think you should use the Constitution to advance a political point of view.
Tavis: Now, you had to know, I certainly did, I mean, you ain't gotta be a rocket scientist to know that the Republicans were going to have a difficult time getting this thing passed, getting some traction on this issue. So, you know, play strategist for me for a second, even though you're a Democrat, not a Republican, why would they waste the capital doing something like this when they knew they couldn't get it passed?
Newsom: Well, I think they miscalculated. There were a lot of commitments to the cultural conservatives to advance the president's support of the Constitutional amendment, going back to the middle of last year. Notably, November 18, 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision went into effect. Clearly, the president was reinforcing that commitment and a lot of folks had said as much in private meetings. So, there was an inevitability that he'd advance this Constitutional amendment.
What happened, of course, is no one imagined that we would do what we did in San Francisco by putting a human face on the issue, by bringing 4,000-plus couples and their extended and immediate families from 46 states and 8 countries together. We really changed the debate dramatically. It was no longer dealing with discrimination in the abstract, we put a narrative and story and real lives in the forefront of the American public. And the consequence of that is a lot of the steam, a lot of the consternation, a lot of the controversy seemed to be taken away when Massachusetts started legally doing this on May 17th. So there wasn't the kind of response that I think the president had predicted and the Republican operatives had predicted sometime back, and in consequence, they didn't build the momentum, so I think they just miscalculated.
I think it is an embarrassment. I mean, one thing we know in politics: count your votes. And it's one thing not to receive two-thirds. They started, then, spinning and saying, 'At least we'll get a majority.' They couldn't even get a majority. I think it's an embarrassment.
Tavis: The presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry along with his running mate John Edwards were not present today for the Senate vote. They saw it as a procedural vote, didn't think they were necessary and did not show up. Having said that, um, if I'm a Democrat, I could say--just work with me on this--I could say, 'Thanks a lot, Mayor Newsom, for putting me even as a Democrat on the hot seat. Uh, why did you have to go do this? I'm running for the White House, and I really didn't need another issue that I got to fight on now in this campaign.'
Newsom: I understand that completely, but when is the right time? You want to stand up to discrimination? You want to change the order of things when you know in your heart--at least, I believe in my heart that it's wrong to deny people the same rights, privileges, and obligations that my wife and I have been afforded and frankly have taken for granted? When is it right the right time?
If this presidential campaign was over, we'd have midterm congressional elections, and it wouldn't be the right time then. If a Democrat won, they'd say, 'We won because we had a strategy they did not consider--gay marriage.' So they would hardly want to see it repeated in that drumbeat later. And if they lost, of course they'd say, 'That's the reason. We shouldn't have touched that issue in the first place.'
My point is this: this train had left the station. The president of the United States used his State of the Union on January 20th basically to set this thing up because he wanted the support advancing this effort. This was before we took action in San Francisco. The Massachusetts Supreme Court and their 'activist judges' were the ones who precipitated this was gonna become an issue for the Democrats with or without me, with or without the actions here in San Francisco.
Tavis: As we have this conversation, you are awaiting a California Supreme Court decision that will determine whether or not what you did back in February of this year--to grant those licenses to same-sex couples--was, in fact, legal. For those who have not seen you or heard you before on this issue, what is the legal underpinning for what you did in San Francisco?
Newsom: Well, look, I'm gonna be honest with folks. We wanted to put a human face on this, so the legal strategy, of course, we engaged in, we did all our arguments to the California Supreme Court. We wanted to advance the Constitutional question. What the Supreme Court did, from their perspective, probably wisely, is they sent the Constitutional question down to the lower courts. And they're just going to be or, in fact, very shortly, will be adjudicating whether or not I exceeded my authority as mayor to interpret 'the Constitution and the law' that prohibits same-sex marriage here in the state of California.
Clearly, that's a tough standard for us to prevail. But the question that I think ultimately will determine the fate of this debate and I think will be a tipping point nationally will be in the hands of the Supreme Court within a year or two. And that, again, is the Constitutional question, the equal protection clause in the Constitution, whether or not the Constitution affords us the ability to deny people, based on their sexual orientation, certain rights and privileges. I have great confidence and expectation we're gonna win on that point. And just one final thought on that--I have confidence and expectations because of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, the Supreme Court in Vermont, the Supreme Court in Alaska, the Supreme Court in Hawaii. When the Supreme Courts of this country take the issue of discrimination as it relates to sexual orientation, inevitably, in almost every instance, they've adjudicated in favor of nondiscrimination, in favor of the core principles of the Constitution.
Tavis: Oh, but, mayor, I don't need to remind you this is the same Supreme Court, though, ostensibly the same Supreme Court that many people see as having selected President Bush when he was not elected by the people.
Newsom: Well, we're talking about the California Supreme Court. You know, it's interesting. A lot of historic issues here. The California Supreme Court in 1948 finally recognized the absurdity in this country as it relates to interracial marriages, but it took till 1967 for the U.S. Supreme Court finally to deny it in that Loving vs. Virginia, to extend that same consideration to the entire country. Sometimes these struggles are long, and we look back--I imagine most of us look back at the idea that people could not marry outside their own races with--just with bewilderment, the fact that it was utterly absurd.
And I have great confidence and expectation that we're gonna look back in a time line much more contracted at the absurdity of this debate and the absurdity of the U.S. Congress, the Senate, spending the last three days not debating health care for 44 million Americans, not debating funding No Child Left Behind, talking about job growth in this country, but debating a Constitutional provision to deny people equal protection under the law.
Tavis: Our two trains for a moment were passing in the night. You were talking about the California Supreme Court. I raised the issue of the U.S. Supreme Court, because ultimately it may end up in that court. What's gonna happen then, as you see it?
Newsom: Well, we'll probably have a new Supreme Court by then. I have no confidence or expectation that the Supreme Court's gonna take this up in the short term. I do, however, believe that if the California Supreme Court adjudicates this--and I believe it's gonna be a very close vote--I really believe that in my gut--within a year or two--most likely 2 years--then I think clearly then it will raise the consideration of the U.S. Supreme Court to finally take a look at this from a national perspective.
Tavis: I got just a couple minutes left. How do you respond to people who say, 'Mayor'--and even Republicans--who argue that, 'We don't want to stop people from doing what they want to do, but why not civil unions? Why do you have to change the definition of marriage as we know it?'
Newsom: Yeah, well, maybe I'm a little bit of a student of history. I've heard this same kind of argument before. We just celebrated 50 years of Brown vs. The Board of Education: separate does not mean equal. And the notion that we can deny people equal status by separating that status to a category called civil unions vs. marriage is to me denying people equal protection and that equal status. So I don't believe in separate but unequal.
Tavis: But where does it end, though, if you do it for same-sex couples, then where does this train stop?
Newsom: Yeah, but these are the same arguments, 'If you allow different races to marry, what's next?' I mean, I don't buy that. Two people that love each other, that are committed to each other, two people that want to live their life out loud and be afforded equal protection under the law and have the same social recognition that I'm afforded and my wife's afforded should be afforded to loving couples in any instance, in any case.
Beyond that, I'll leave that to other people to speculate that slippery slope. To me, that's a red herring. The bottom line: we want to advance the notion of strengthening marriage in this country by allowing more people to participate in the institution of marriage. That reinforces my marriage and reinforces the bonding that this country tries to advance of couples coming together and advancing their lives together and their families' lives together.
Tavis: I got 15 seconds. How big a campaign issue, given what happened today, is this still going to be between now and November?
Newsom: I think it will be, but very targeted, very isolated in these swing states. Remember, they're talking to a much smaller audience in these swing states, the undecided voters. They know exactly what they're doing on this debate. That's what's so shameful about it. The president wants to advance his political career by writing in discrimination in the Constitution. They're not gonna give up, and I think that's shameful, and I think today was a big interim victory, but this battle is hardly over.
Tavis: He's the mayor of one of my favorite cities, San Francisco. Mayor Newsom, nice to have you on, sir.
Newsom: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: All the best to you. Up next on this program, actor Tony Danza. Stay with us.
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