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Thursday, April 21, 2005
Swallowing spin
I applaud Connecticut for approving civil unions for gay couples. It's a good start. The spin I keep reading about how Connecticut is the first step to voluntarily extend such benefits is mostly bunk.That's why they were pleased but still unsatisfied Wednesday when Connecticut offered civil unions to gay couples, becoming the first state to do so voluntarily, without being forced by the courts.
California's domestic partner law represents the nation's most sweeping recognition of domestic partner rights short of Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legalized, and Vermont, which recognizes civil unions for gay couples. It grants registered couples virtually every spousal right under state law except the ability to file joint income taxes.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal said Monday that the law did not undermine Proposition 22, the 2000 initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. That measure was "intended only to limit the status of marriage to heterosexual couples and to prevent the recognition in California of homosexual marriages," the three-judge panel said.
People of good will should continue to work to obtain the legal incidents of marriage for gay couples. I don't much care whether it's called marriage. There's a pastor in every state willing to preside over and bless a gay marriage. That these ceremonies have no legal effect is of no great moment. The ceremony itself has no legal effect for straight couples, either. It's the signing of the marriage certificate in the church office after the honorariums have cleared that affords the legal incidents of marriage upon the newlyweds.
I think the best way to move forward on this issue is to engage in mass acts of civil obedience. We need a well-drafted, thoroughly considered, footnoted and indexed Uniform Civil Union Act (example). The UCUA would set forth all the procedures, duties, and rights for beginning and ending civil unions. Gay couples in states without existing civil unions or gay marriage would follow the uniform procedures in their home states. Gay rights groups would track couples in UCUA unions. Each year the the UCUA couples would petition their legislature to pass UCUA. Among the compelling reasons for passages would be the living proof offered by the thousands of couples already living under the UCUA strictures.
Of course the UCUA would not have the legal effect of positive law. Complying with would often mean little, if anything at all. But one day a probate court judge would recognize a UCUA union as one person's intent in the distribution of his or her estate. Who knows where the ball might roll from there?
