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I've gone back and forth on whether or not to write about Proposition 8. Not because I don't think that Proposition 8 isn't a topic of great importance, it absolutely is. In fact, I think the outcome of Proposition 8 will either set back, or catapult forward, gay rights in this country. The effects of its success or failure will not be limited to the bounds of the California state lines. It will set the tone for the rest of the country. If Prop 8 fails, it invigorates and infuses new hope into the gay rights movement. If it succeeds, it emboldens those who seek to make their morality law, to oppose equal rights for all people.
It is not that I do not have a strong opinion about Proposition 8 that I did not want to write about it. I couldn't be more strongly opposed to the proposed amendment to the California State Constitution. An amendment that would take away the right of marriage already granted to all citizen of California and exercised by more than 11,000 gay couples in California. And don't tell me that if Prop 8 passes, those 11,000 gay couples who married will still have the same civil rights they had before, because they already had all the same civil rights as married couples before. Because if that were actually the case, there wouldn't be a push to make a distinction between marriage and domestic partnership. If it's called marriage, not civil union or domestic partnership for one group, then it should be marriage for all. Otherwise it is implied that one is superior to the other.
In the absence of legal recognition, Elizabeth and I defined our relationship for years on our own terms. Then when California introduced a domestic-partnership registry in 1999, we went downtown and signed up for the handful of benefits it offered at the time. Over the years California legislators fought to expand our rights under that registry such that, by 2007, domestic partnership was practically identical to marriage-except in name. And that difference in name was a constant reminder that in the eyes of the state, our relationship fell under a category of recognition that held us separate from our relatives and so many of our friends.
Now that artificial separation is erased, and this joy I feel being married represents something far more profound than a shift in nomenclature: It's the realization of true equality, and it's been a long time coming!
-read full post prop. 8 family values, by TKM who blogs at Neurotranscendence
While I feel that Betty Please and I are married, and I have no doubt that we're in it 'til death do we part, in our state we have no rights. I can only imagine what it must feel like to actually finally have that recognition of marriage. Not civil union or domestic partner. Marriage.
We consider our wedding date to be that day: October 20, 2001. But the state of California thinks our wedding date is July 11, 2008, because that was the day that we promised we would love each other forever after the California Supreme Court declared marriage a legal option for ALL consenting, adult Californians on May 15, 2008. And to be honest, I didn't think that second wedding date was going to be a big deal. We considered ourselves married already; this was just a formality. But when I heard the words, "By the power vested in me by the State of California...," I knew there was a difference. There was a difference between a legal recognition of domestic partnership and a legal recognition of a marriage. In fact, there are over 1000 civil rights afforded by "marriage" that are not afforded by "domestic partnership." The Supreme Court of California noted that this was a case of separate but (un)equal, and I agree. It felt different.
-read Beth's full post Our plea. at House Made
Intellectually, I have always understood that a Civil Union would give us the same (state, that is) legal rights as marriage. But what I didn't realize - that in my heart ... I never gave it as much weight.
No really... I had no idea that I truly felt this way. That it wasn't just rhetoric.
Civil Union, after all, is a legal, binding commitment - and yet some how... for me... it was not gelling. I wasn't giving
