julifolo's Journal

A lawyer's comment on Prop 8 decision (that I hope is right)
Read page 36. They just cut Prop 8 to the bone.

That's an essay at Daily Kos. According to that interpretation, the Calif Supreme Court "as much as" said: the voters voted same-sex couldn't use the designation "marriage", but (according to the original Marriage decision that allowed the same-sex marriages -- it's Settled Law in California that it's discrimination to disallow legal recognition.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/26/735571/-Read-page-36.-They-just-cut-Prop-8-to-the-bone.

By its terms, the new provision refers only to "marriage" and does not address the right to establish an officially recognized family relationship, which may bear a name or designation other than "marriage."

He also pointed out that the court could have interpreted the vote very broadly, but seemed to go to great length to interpret as narrowly as possible. Basically, the difference between "domestic partnerships" and "marriage", as far as legal rights, is still unconstitutional in California.

Many comments ensued, about just "scratch out marriage" on the forms. "Seriously, I think that the governments will be ordered to figure something out." & speculation that that S.F. administrators are doing exactly that. So it's ripe for a test case. Though, of course, better if it wasn't allowed to be voted on at all. (Other commenters were disagreeing -- it really will boil down to what happens when same sex couples demand licenses for "officially recognized family relationships". I'll be watching ...

They also said the inititive system is bad, but it isn't the court's role to fix it ... ?? (Judges, unfortunately, can be recalled) (I think the coward judge's original thought when they let the vote happen -- there was a suite that it would be an illegal vote -- was that the vote would fail & they'd be off the hook.)

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