Today the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, by a 2-1 vote, that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. I had been waiting for the announcement of their ruling around 10am this morning and was very excited to hear the good news.
Two years ago, when a gay rights group first filed in federal court, it was very controversial among the LGBT community because filing in the federal courts means that the case may go all the way to the Supreme Court and many in the LGBT community did not feel we would have the votes to win, and a loss would be a terrible blow that would set the cause of gay marriage back many years (and possibly decades). As time has gone on and polling shows the majority of Americans now support gay marriage, I have felt more and more optimistic about this strategy. After today's ruling was announced, I even felt excited about the possibility that the Supreme Court would hear the case as early as next year. I'm sending positive vibes to Anthony Kennedy as I write this!
But now I'm reading that the very narrow ruling in this case means it may never reach the Supreme Court and, if it does, the Court would probably only issue another narrow ruling without national implications. While I appreciate the fact that my marriage is legal in the state of California and I hope that future same-sex Californians can marry again in this state, it's really the 1,138 federal rights of marriage that I'm after. I want to file my taxes jointly, I want Social Security benefits to carry on to my spouse if I die before her, and I want my marriage to still be valid when I leave the state of California. And, as a federal employee, I will soon start paying a hefty monthly sum because I'm married to a woman and not a man. When Tori gets laid off on March 2nd, she will have to purchase a health insurance plan out of pocket because the federal government does not recognize our relationship and I cannot include her on my family health plan. If the Supreme Court were to rule that marriage is a civil right, then the Defense of Marriage Act would end and I could save a couple of hundred bucks a month on Tori's health insurance. And then there's that whole human dignity thing that I thought today's ruling put so nicely:
Marriage is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of 'registered domestic partnership' does not.
1 comment:
I also loved how Justice Reinhardt said....“Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called ‘How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire,’ it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same-sex couples is no different," the judge wrote.
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