Marriage Equality Defeated (for now) in Maine

Andrew Sullivan Misreads the Situation in the Pine Tree State

04 November 2009

A majority of voters in Maine yesterday chose to repeal the state’s law allowing same-sex couples to get married before it even went into effect, the Bangor Daily News reports here.  Following last year’s debacle of Proposition 8 stripping same-sex couples of the right to marry, Maine becomes the second state to have (almost) had equal  state-controlled rights for lesbigay persons only to lose them to the expression of fears or prejudice at the ballot box.

Thus Andrew Sullivan is wrong  to write in his blog that “in Maine, … gays do have equality but may now merely be denied the name.”  Unless he is writing about the abstract moral equality that underlies claims to human rights, or the abstract political equality of persons and citizens ostensibly protected by the U.S. Constitution, Sullivan is simply wrong to assert that  lesbigay people in Maine “have equality,” for several reasons.

First, same-sex couples in Maine are now relegated to state registered domestic partnerships but, unlike California’s domestic partnerships, these are decidely weaker than civil marriages.  The Maine Department of Health and Human Services, has even cautioned in bold print that "[i]t is important to remember that a registered domestic partnership is NOT the same as a marriage and does not entitle partners to rights other than those for which the registry was intended.  This registry is intended to allow individuals to have rights of inheritance as well as the rights to make decisions regarding disposal of their deceased partners remains."

Second, even if Maine attached all the same state-controlled rights, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage to domestic partnerships, the voters’ decision to deny marriage to same-sex couples imposes a legal burden on them that different-sex couples don’t face.  When a married couple goes to another state, there is a well established body of interstate marriage recognition law that they can appeal to.  Granted, the “Defense of Marriage Acts” (DOMAs)  adopted in many states make it harder to invoke this body of law successfully.  But same-sex couples in Maine now will face the additional hurdle of having also to argue that their non-marital status should count as a marriage for purposes of this body of law.  Likewise,  if Congress were to repeal the federal DOMA, which Barack Obama has said he supports, then married same-sex couples would automatically be governed by the estimated 1,138 federal laws that make marital status relevant; same-sex couples from Maine, however, would have additionally to try to argue that their domestic partnership, intentionally distinguished from marriage, should nonetheless be treated as a marriage for federal law purposes.

And third, Andrew Sullivan here seems to be making the same volte-face as the California Supreme Court did  this past spring when it upheld Proposition 8 , which stripped same-sex couples in California of the right to marry.  When Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the Court in 2008 in striking down the marriage exclusion as violating the California Constitutionl, the Chief Justice penned eloquent passages about the importance of being included in the institution of “civil marriage” as such for the equality and dignity of lesbigay people.  Yet when he wrote for the same court a year later and upheld California’s pernicious ballot measure, his reasoning seemed to many to hold that this was a sufficiently non-fundamental change to the state constitution – even though it targeted a minority group defined by a suspect classification for deprivation of a fundamental right, the right to marry – because the “sole” effect of Prop 8 was to deny same-sex couples the “designation” of “marriage.”

Andrew Sullivan seemed to appreciate the stakes when the California Supreme Court first invalidated the discriminatory marriage exclusion.  In his blog mere days after the decision, he wrote:

“Equality is equality is equality. And a marriage license is a marriage license is a marriage license. Calling it something else for a few is a way of saying it is something else for the few, and something lesser for the few. There is no way around this, and in many ways, I am grateful that the California court put it so bluntly.”

Nothing has changed about the nature of equality, so it is not apparent to me why Sullivan seems to have changed his mind about equality in Maine.

Posted by Cruz at 7:33 AM | Link | 0 comments

Categories: Maine California Constitution Prop 8 California Supreme Court marriage recognition human rights marriage Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) domestic partnership

LGBT Advocacy Groups Excluded from Suit Challenging Prop 8

"And you just might need a friend"

19 August 2009

Federal court trial judge Vaughn Walker has scheduled trial in the challenge to Proposition 8's ban on California's allowing same-sex couples to marry for January 2010.  See the San Jose Mercury News story here.  He also rejected the attempts of LGBT advocacy groups to intervene to challenge and an anti-gay group to defend Prop 8 as direct parties, indicating that they could instead present their views through amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs.  The City and County of San Francisco was allowed to intervene, but only for limited purposes according to some news accounts.  Let's hope that's enough to ensure the plaintiffs challenging Prop 8 establish an adequate factual basis for their claims.

Posted by Cruz at 12:50 PM | Link | 0 comments

Categories: California Constitution Prop 8 marriage recognition marriage

Pro-Marriage Equality Initiative Filed

"Ooo and it's alright and it's comin' 'long"

20 March 2009

Yesterday, March 19, 2009, the California Secretary of State provided an official summary for a proposed initiative (the "California Marriage Equality Act") to re-amend the state constitution to restore same-sex couples' equal right to marry.  Proponents will now have until August 19 to gather the not quite 700,000 signature required to qualify it to go before the voters.  Besides repealing the section of the California Constitution added by Proposition 8, the measure specifies -- apparently to forestall some of the chief fear tactics used in the Yes on 8 campaign -- that it shall not be interpreted to change school curricula or force clergy to perform services or duties "incongruent with their faith."

Posted by Cruz at 10:43 PM | Link | 2 comments

Categories: California Constitution California Marriage Equality Act Prop 8 marriage