California Steps Into the 21st Century

[herufeanor]

I was a bit shocked, and saddened, when another state did this before California did. I always thought of us as one of the most progressive states in the Union. We're the home of San Francisco, probably the most famously gay city in the world! And yet, Massachusetts beat us to the punch, by legalizing same-sex marriage before we did. What the hell

Comments

[maniakes]

They struck down the ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.

Yes, it is. The ruling specifically says that CA has to start recognizing same-sex marriages within 30 days of the ruling.

[herufeanor]

Oh, really?

That's even better then. Though it does smack of "legislating from the bench", which makes me a little leery, as much as I agree with what they're trying to accomplish.

[maniakes]

Ya, rly.

California never had a constitutional provision forbidding gay marriage, if that's what you were thinking was. The 1999 initiative tied the legislature's hands so another ballot initiative would be needed to legalize it, but didn't amend the constitution. This ruling

I'd much prefer gay marriage be implemented through a ballot initiative, but it didn't sound like the SCOCA had much of a choice here. California's constitution has a very broad equal protection provision, and there's a ton of case law around it that they would have had to ignore or overturn in order not to reach this ruling.

This blog post is a pretty good summary.

[herufeanor]

And yet, there were still 3 dissenting judges, which I find interesting.

What I found to sound somewhat legislative is that they didn't just strike down the law (which yes, I know wasn't a constitutional amendment), but rather that they also included a requirement that a new law be passed, to explicitly recognize gay marriage.

While I absolutely support such a law, I'm not sure it's the court's place to require that.

[vorpar]

The reason that gay marriage has been held up for so long is because legal experts have been baffled over who gets to destroy whom in case of divorce. :P

Most of my conservative friends have wanted to see the government out of marriage for a long time, it should be a religious tradition, and as the establishment clause states...

California has been better about it than most places. Benefits are mandatory in SF, and several CA corps. give benefits anyway (Disney is the most known)

It is weird that the court is demanding a law (any rights not forbidden are given to the states or to the people.) but striking down a law that doesn't give equal protection to all citizens should be what the bench does.

[herufeanor]

It depends on which kind of conservative you are, the libertarian, pro-business type, or the religious right type. These two groups normally seem so directly opposed, I wonder how they can exist in the same party

[maniakes]

There are a lot of Republicans who are both social conservatives and fiscal libertarians. There's also little real conflict between the two groups you cite, as the libertarian wing of the party tends to put fiscal issues low in their priorities and the pure social conservatives tend to be indifferent towards fiscal issues. Both groups also like federalism, and the groups will ally to fight attempts from the left to write progressive social values into law.

[singingnymph]

Most of my conservative friends have wanted to see the government out of marriage for a long time, it should be a religious tradition, and as the establishment clause states...So if you're atheist, you don't get to get married? *wink

[bagelfather]

In order to prevent same sex marriages there would need to be an amendment to the constitution for the state of California. Why many across the country, who are opposed to same sex unions, are worried is because the United States Constitution clearly states that each state has to recognize the contracts from another state

[makellan]

It would be very difficult to move marriage totally out of the government's hands. By getting married, I

[maniakes]

Have given my wife authority to make decisions for me while I lie unconscious in the hospital and vice versa.

You can do this by signing a medical power of attorney declaration.

May file taxes in a different and preferential way.

Meaning we bachelors are forced to subsidize you. Please, think of the bachelors.

Have dedicated half of my wealth to my wife and vice versa

You can do this by forming a corporation or a partnership that you each own half of, and transferring your shared assets to this. Under the world herufeanor and I are proposing, there would be a streamlined way to do this.

[herufeanor]

To be more specific, I actually envision all the legal/government effects of marriage to still exist, just under a different name, such as Domestic Partnership or Civil Union.

The real problem here is that "marriage", as a word, carries strong religious connotations, and people object to applying that label to something which their religion doesn't believe is a valid marriage.

So, you could still have the tax, decision making, etc. benefits of "marriage", and just call them something else. Obviously, such a legislation would have to carry a clause that all existing legally-recognized marriages are either grandfathered in, or transfered automatically over to the new system.

[singingnymph]

To be fair, many churches will be happy to marry same-sex couples once they get a chance