Attorney general debate: Steve Cooley says he would go to court to defend gay-marriage ban

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Steve Cooley says he would defend Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban, in federal court.

In Tuesday’s debate with Kamala Harris, Cooley said, ‘Proposition 8 was passed by a majority of the California electorate ... Therefore, it should be defended by the California attorney general whether the attorney general believes in it or not.’

Harris’s stand: ‘Now that Propositon 8 has been found to be unconstitutional by a federal district court judge, we should not use the precious resources of the state of California’ on an appeal.

Cooley said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown were ‘abandoning their responsibilities’ by not appealing the case. Cooley said, because of that, Californians were ‘not going to get resolution on this very important issue.’

Live coverage of the entire debate is available here.

-- Anthony York in Davis, Calif.