We Sorta Won a Thing: Taxation and the Long Fight for Marriage Equality in Germany
By Lina and Maria
When I heard the news about a new kind of civil union for same-sex couples being…
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We Won A Thing! Marriage Equality Comes To Minnesota
When Luisa and I began planning our commitment ceremony in 2000, I called my mother to tell her and remember her saying that it wasn’t a “real wedding.” She went on to say that it was actually illegal, clearly missing the nuanced difference between “not…
Sunday Funday Will Make Her Two Moms Proud at Smith College
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Sunday Funday Is A Not-So-Miserable Lesbian
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A Star Was Born…
George W. Bush Has Nothing to Say About Gay Marriage
With the upcoming opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum looming, suddenly…
Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. Because under California statutory law, same-sex couples had all the rights of opposite-sex couples, regardless of their marital status, all parties agree that Proposition 8 had one effect only. It stripped same-sex couples of the ability they previously possessed to obtain from the State, or any other authorized party, an important right – the right to obtain and use the designation of ‘marriage’ to describe their relationships. Nothing more, nothing less. Proposition 8 therefore could not have been enacted to advance California’s interests in childrearing or responsible procreation, for it had no effect on the rights of same-sex couples to raise children or on the procreative practices of other couples. Nor did Proposition 8 have any effect on religious freedom or on parents’ rights to control their children’s eduction; it could not have been enacted to safeguard these liberties.
All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of “marriage,” which symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committed relationships. Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for “laws of this sort.”
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, via Autostraddle — BREAKING: US Circuit Court of Appeals Rules That Prop 8 Is Unconstitutional