Wait five years and amend the constitution again? By then support for SSM should be there.
Will someone think of the Norwegian children???
A couple years ago I discovered that I’m still registered to vote in California, where I haven’t lived since 2002. I know it might be a bit unethical, but I’m going to go ahead and get me an absentee ballot this time around so I can vote against this amendment.
A great day for my home state!
And I think there’s a good chance the proposed amendment will fail. The SSM act was passed in 2000 with 61% of the vote. A lot has changed since then.
ETA: This isn’t scientific, but the LA Times’ story includes an opinion poll, and with almost 23,000 responses, 81% say they think the SC made the right decision. A good sign!
No, they didn’t.
In fact, I believe the papers they signed in San Francisco specifically stated that there was no refund, even if the license was later declared void (as it was). So the City of San Francisco collected something like a half million dollars of extra fees from that, and will presumably collect the same amount again if all those couples come back to get another marriage license, a legal one this time.
(And if the California Constitutional Amendment outlawing same-sex marriage passes in November, it will likely include language voiding any such marriages performed between Jun 15th and Nov 4th. But the couples would still not get their marriage license fees refunded.)
I suppose they might be able to deduct them from their taxes as a ‘bad investment’ or something.
Actually they did refund the money. A few weeks after it was invalidated, we got a letter offering to refund our money, or if we returned a signed form, donate it to the legal fund set up to take the case to court. We donated our money.
The letter also stated that after SSmarriage became legal in California, if we wanted to get married in San Francisco again they would waive the fees. A real class act on the part of the city.
Assuming the SCC doesn’t stay it’s ruling until after the election I doubt any marriages conducted before will be retroactivelly invalidated. When the Nazis banned Ayran/Jewish marriage in 1935 even they didn’t disolve mixed marriages already in existence.
An anti-marriage amendment petition has already been submitted for certification to the CA Sec of State’s office. There are a few different amendments floating around the interwebs but I think the text below is the proposed amendment:
So not only would this prevent same-sex couples from marrying, it would also bar transpeople from marrying someone who has the same genetic makeup. Apparently the state of California would have to implement genetic testing as part of the licensing process to make sure none of those trannies slip in under the radar.
This just might kill their chance of passing it. This would void domestic partnerships and they have good support around here.
If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that should the marriage amendment fail the CA legislature will pass a bill allowing for DPs to convert their existing DP to a marriage. That strikes me as the most logical solution. The state did something similar when it expanded the older DP law to the current more comprehensive one. If DPs didn’t proactively dissolve the partnership by the date the law took effect they would automatically be in an expanded DP under the new law.
Wow! They’re really shooting themselves in the foot with this one. They should have just left it as marriage is defined as one man and one woman, without more. I’m glad they put all that extra stuff in there to give people more reason to vote NO.
That’s kinda what killed the SSM bill here in Arizona.
Not just transpeople. There are genetic disorders that can lead to females with a y chromosome and males without one.
I shouted out loud seeing this on the news yesterday, and am hopeful that it’ll pave the way. A nice shout out too for San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who was shown right in the midst of the celebration, hugging people and happy for his constituents.
Seems like this part might contribute to killing it, too.
That decrease the statutory rights part – I think a smart lawyer could argue that various laws, like the California community property law, or child support laws, or restrictions on cutting an ex-spouse out of pension benefits are decreasing the rights of one of the marriage partners, and so challenge them on that basis.
Rather like the judicial rulings that the Michigan anti-gay-marriage law ended up invalidating Michigan’s domestic abuse laws for everyone except married couples. Protection from domestic violence was an appertainance of marriage, and so this law prohibited providing it to unmarried couples.
I’m sorry, but are you assuming that people will actually read that many words in a ballot measure? Good luck.
I always worry when a decision is “put to the people.” And if that thing were to pass and voids domestic partnerships too, I would absolutely shit.
Did the SCOTSC make its ruling based on the Constitution, or the CA Constitution?
(Too lazy to read the opinion)
And apparently too lazy to read the thread, which notes repeatedly that the decision was based entirely on the California constitution and thus may not be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
On Internet Infidels (where I belong to a Christian group they gave sanctuary to ;)), an older woman Californian law professor and retired lawyer with a specialty in family law cited a legal-analysis write-up that suggested that marriage and DP were two distinct relationships which could co-exist. I don’t have the link, but you might want to Google for it.
I read the thread. I missed that. Don’t kill me!
Incidentally, Yay!