Law Students

Gay Marriage.

By Steve Pirates

First, I think that calling it gay marriage is a misnomer. There’s nothing inherently homosexual about two men marrying one another. Sure, I would be willing to be that 99.5% of all same sex marriages will be homosexual (or at least bisexual) in nature. But there is nothing that says two straight men can’t marry one another and then continue sleeping with other women (remember that in California adultery is not grounds for fault based divorce.) Frankly, I think that what is being framed as same-sex marriage is really “gender blind marriage”.

I think that while the media is most fixed on gays getting married, the ruling from the State Supremes really goes further than that. Trans and Intersexed people of the world rejoice. People born with chromosomes different from their expressed gender. People born hermaphroditic whose parents choose wrong. People who’ve felt their whole life that they were the wrong gender. There is a difference between a man who loves men, and a man who has felt that he was really a woman all his life, and loves men as part of that.

Those people are now free to marry whomever they want. And I for one really applaud that.

But, on to my main line of questions… What happens to domestic partnerships now? Can homosexual couples who are currently in registered domestic partnerships get married? Or would that be a form of bigamy? Will people be able to be BOTH registered domestic partners to one person and married to another? Or would THAT be bigamy? Will registered domestic partner laws need to change in order to prevent heterosexual couples under 62 from being discriminated against? Can anyone now choose between marriage and being an RDP? Will people be able to have a spouse and a partner? Will people who are currently registered domestic partners need to go through a dissolution in order to be “single” so that they can be “married”?

I mean, it seems that really the simplest thing to do would be to allow anyone who is currently an RDP to remain one if they choose, and to change the RDP laws to be restricted solely to people over the age of 62; and also to let any couple in an RDP relationship to segue into a marriage with no dissolution, but require a dissolution of the RDP if one of the partners wants to marry someone else.

But yeah, it will be interesting to see if the ruling survives the certain constitutional amendment that will be floated out here. It will be interesting to see if it passes.

Full post as published by Jolly Lawger on May 31, 2008 (boomark / email).