Go California
2008-05-15 | Filed under Politics |
The California Supreme Court (dominated, incidentally, by Republicans) says discrimination is icky.
A few years ago, I was in the camp that believed that, in a perfect world, there would be a distinction between civil unions and marriages. You get your civil union (with all the legal benefits) from the state, after jumping through the applicable hoops. You get your marriage (with all the religious benefits) from your religious institution of choice, after jumping through the applicable hoops. Some people would have both. Some people would have only one.
I still think that would exist in a perfect world (e.g. one where we actually respect a separation between church and state). It might be workable in a less than completely perfect world (e.g. one in which things like civil unions exist as a meaningful analog to marriage), even if it gave bigots a semantic victory. But in a much less than perfect world (e.g. this one), it’s not a first step; it’s less than half a loaf. I am personally embarrassed that I ever thought it could be otherwise.
The California Supreme Court sums it up nicely:
Furthermore, because of the historic disparagement of gay persons, the retention of a distinction in nomenclature by which the term “marriage” is withheld only from the family relationship of same-sex couples is all the more likely to cause the new parallel institution that has been established for same-sex couples to be considered a mark of second-class citizenship.
Finally, in addition to the potential harm flowing from the lesser stature that is likely to be afforded to the family relationships of same-sex couples by designating them domestic partnerships, there exists a substantial risk that a judicial decision upholding the differential treatment of opposite-sex and same-sex couples would be understood as validating a more general proposition that our state by now has repudiated: that it is permissible, under the law, for society to treat gay individuals and same-sex couples differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals and opposite-sex couples.
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Hi Megan-I’m listing your blog tomorrow for forgotten books. If you didn’t have a chance to think of one, let me know and I’ll remove the link. Thanks, Patti
(aa2579@wayne.edu)