{"id":11166,"date":"2008-05-15T10:13:24","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T17:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2008\/05\/15\/11166.html"},"modified":"2008-05-15T10:13:24","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T17:13:24","slug":"samesex-marriage-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2008\/05\/15\/samesex-marriage-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Same-sex marriage in California!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The California Supreme Court has posted their opinion<\/a> (PDF file) in the same-sex marriage case, a couple weeks earlier than expected. (Note that their server is currently swamped.)<\/p>\n

I've just barely started reading it. But here's the first thing I looked for, in the final paragraph of the 120-page majority opinion:<\/p>\n

\n

[...] we determine that the language of section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a union \u201cbetween a man and a woman\u201d is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I am really really happy about this.<\/p>\n

Please note (from pp. 4-5 of the majority opinion) this is ruling is strictly about the state constitution:<\/p>\n

\n

[...] our task in this proceeding is not to decide whether we believe, as a matter of policy<\/em>, that the officially recognized relationship of a same-sex couple should<\/em> be designated a marriage rather than a domestic partnership (or some other term), but instead only to determine whether the difference in the official names of the relationships violates the California Constitution<\/em>. We are aware, of course, that very strongly held differences of opinion exist on the matter of policy[....] Whatever our views as individuals with regard to this question as a matter of policy, we recognize as judges and as a court our responsibility to limit our consideration of the question to a determination of the constitutional validity of the current legislative provisions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anyway. I don't know what the next steps are. One news article said there'd be US Supreme Court appeals. Others have pointed out that there's a drive to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot for this fall; I don't think such an amendment will pass, but it may be a nearer thing than I would like.<\/p>\n

But for the moment, I'm really happy.<\/p>\n

Off to read the rest of the opinion, and some analysis as soon as it's posted.<\/p>\n

P.S. added later: I'm glad to see that Gov. Schwarzenegger continues to say (as he's said before) that he \"will not support an amendment to the constitution<\/a>\" banning same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The California Supreme Court has posted their opinion (PDF file) in the same-sex marriage case, a couple weeks earlier than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-samesex-marriage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}