January 1, 2005
CUTTING TO THE CHASE:
Though They Can't Wed, Gays May Now Divorce: Law expanding rights and responsibilities for state's domestic partners takes effect today. (Lee Romney, January 1, 2005, LA Times)
Gays and lesbians still can't marry in California. But starting today, the more than 26,000 couples registered with the state as domestic partners will have to divorce if they split up.If they have children, they will automatically receive a wide array of parental rights. Community property suddenly applies, just as for married spouses.
The changes are part of a law, put on the books by the Legislature and former Gov. Gray Davis in September 2003 but going into effect only now, that greatly expands California's 5-year-old experiment with domestic partnerships.
The law's supporters and opponents agree that it makes domestic partnership in California equivalent to marriage in almost all but name.
That would be great exept that all they want is the social imprimatur. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 1, 2005 9:28 AM
For all the talk abojut seperation of church and state by the left, in the case of the concept of "marriage" it's a place where they now want to preserve the bond -- but only so long as the legal usage prevails over the traditional religous definition of marriage being a bond between a man and a woman.
Yes, you can find a few donimations that will sanction gay marriages, and as the most recent elections point out, you're going to be able to find a lot of individual states that won't. But eventually this will turn ito a battle for custody of the term at the federal level, with those seeking to make marriage a predominantly non-secular legal statute (as opposed to settling for the term civil unions) using rulings in the more bluer states of the union to justify an eventual "Roe"-like decision by the Supreme Court.
Posted by: John at January 1, 2005 10:54 AM