SACRAMENTO, April 21 (UPI) -- A committee of California's General Assembly has voted to legalize gay and lesbian marriages, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
The Assembly Judiciary Committee approved a bill Tuesday to grant full marriage rights to same sex-couples.
The bill is considered unlikely to advance and is expected to die this year.
That did not seem to discourage supporters.
"What we are looking at today is a union of two individuals," said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who wrote the bill, "whether for a lifetime or not, whether to procreate or not -- to share the joys, the challenges, the ups and downs and exhilarations of life together."
Assembly leaders were under public pressure to support Leno's bill and willing to give him a single public hearing. But in an election year, with focus on the state budget crisis, the bill is expected to die in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
