CAL bigots attack domestic partners

[EXCERPTS from AP story:]

Judge Hears Bid To Overturn
California Domestic Partner Law 

by Lisa Leff
The Associated Press

(Sacramento, California)
A law granting same-sex couples nearly identical
legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses hangs in the balance after a Superior Court judge heard arguments Tuesday [Aug. 24] on whether the measure should be
upheld or overturned.
Lawyers for two sets of plaintiffs opposed to marriage
rights for gay couples want the law thrown out, claiming it violates the spirit and intent of a 2000 ballot initiative approved by voters that holds California will only recognize unions between a man and a woman as valid.

But supporters of the new measure, passed by the Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis last year..., said there was nothing in the language of the voter-approved mandate to prevent the state from conferring spousal benefits on the 26,000 gay couples who have registered as domestic
partners.

The law is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, but neither side in the debate left court with a clear indication of how Judge Loren McMasters would rule after he took the matter under consideration.

"The two sides are totally sure the initiative is clear and unambiguous on its face, but it means two entirely different things" to them, McMasters said, after peppering opposing lawyers with equally pointed questions that never
betrayed his leanings.

Although Proposition 22 has been law for more than four years, the central issue during Tuesday's nearly two hours of oral arguments was whether voters intended to prevent gays from garnering any spousal privileges or merely to
preserve the institution of marriage itself.
[......]


In 1999, California became the first state to allow gay and lesbian couples, as well as unmarried opposite-sex couples over age 62, to register as domestic partners.

Three years ago, the Legislature passed a measure providing registered twosomes about a dozen rights previously available only to heterosexual spouses or next of kin, including the right to make medical decisions for incapacitated partners, to sue for a partner's wrongful death, and to adopt a partner's child.

The expanded domestic partnership bill set to take effect next year [2005] expands on those efforts by extending to registered couples every other marriage-based entitlement that could be amended under state law without a two-thirds vote.

It does not authorize marriages between same-sex couples, but it would guarantee them legal and financial benefits ranging from the ability to file joint income taxes to the standing to petition courts for child support and alimony.
[.....]



©Associated Press 2004
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