Tuesday the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, deciding that an amendment to the California constitution approved in the last election makes the word "marriage" off limits to same sex couples. However, the court seems also to have decided that same sex couples cannot be denied equal protection of the laws, thus the don't-call-it-marriages (in California currently it's Domestic Partnership?) must be precisely the same as dual-sex "marriage" (minus the name).
Today I posted a diary at DailyKos:
Don't like "Marriage"? Here's your chance!
Which dual-sex couples are going to challenge their exclusion from Domestic Partnership in California?
The California Supreme Court just ruled that same sex couples are entitled to all the rights of marriage but for the word. If we are all now equal, what is a Domestic Partnership? (In other jurisdictions the don’t-call-it-marriage equivalent is termed Civil Unions. In California it’s domestic partnership.)
There are many Kossacks who demand the government get out of the marriage business. At least, say they, the government should have all the rights of marriage available under a different name. According to the California Supreme Court, now it does (or must?). At this time you can’t file a domestic partnership if you are a dual-sex couple*.
So you’re a young het couple who doesn’t think the government should be using a loaded religious word like “marriage”, right? Here’s your opportunity to get don’t-call-it-married, ie., Domestic Partnered. In the eyes of the state (the California Supreme Court, anyway) a domestic partnership and a marriage are identical. What’s the justification for denying a het couple freedom from the word “marriage”, just like their gay brothers & lesbian sisters?
Looking down the road a bit, you’re safely dp’d, now you can ask the feds to recognize your Domestic Partnership as a Marriage. After all, it’s just a name. The California Supreme Court says there isn’t (or must not be) any difference whatsoever. Why shouldn’t the federal government recognize a het domestic partnership as marriage? Is there an argument against it?
The more people choose against “marriage” and for marriage-by-another-name the less power the word “marriage” will have? Isn’t that the golden key to this locked up argument? That’s the assertion I keep hearing. Here is your opportunity to test it! Who will step up?
(By the way, can anybody source the “18,000 same sex marriages” figure? I can’t seem to find the authority.)
*There is an exception to the current het exclusion to Domestic Partnership. If you are over 62 you can get dp’d because the federal government won’t consider you married, thus you won’t lose benefits – many of the widowed old rely on pension benefits from their dead spouse, benefits which evaporate upon remarriage. It’s another issue but WTF? Why do you lose pension benefits?
4 comments:
18,000 marriages is a hard one to find
You tried, too? I can guess somebody looked at the average number of marriages from year to year and subtracted that from the 2008 marriages, the remainder being the number of same sex marriages, but ... who?
What if gay couples started calling their unions "merrige" or "marege" or "marraj" or something like that? The Supreme Court would seem to allow them to do that. As long as they don't call it "marriage."
The issue isn't really what "gay couples" call it. Anybody can call anything whatever they want. It's what the state calls it.
The problem with creating a separate name for the marriages of gay couples is that no one really knows what the new name will mean. With the word "marriage" there is in law already a long history of jurisprudence. Basically, everybody knows what relation two married people have to each other. Creating a new nomenclature continues to put the onus on an already disadvantaged population.
It's up to the state legislature now to redo the state's laws along the Supreme Court's guidelines. Presumably they could replace the word "marriage" wherever it appears in state codes with the words "marriage/domestic partnership" (or "marriage/mary-is"?) and everyone at the county clerk's office would use the same forms. Maybe Schwarzenegger would even sign such a law. Hard to know with that guy.
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