SACRAMENTO (AP) A law granting same-sex couples nearly
identical legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses
hangs in the balance after a Superior Court judge heard arguments
on whether the measure should be upheld or overturned.
Lawyers for two sets of plaintiffs opposed to marriage rights
for gay couples want the law thrown out, claiming it violates the
spirit and intent of a 2000 ballot initiative approved by voters
that holds California will only recognize unions between a man and
a woman as valid.
But supporters of the new measure, passed by the Legislature and
signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis last year, said there was
nothing in the language of the voter-approved mandate to prevent
the state from conferring spousal benefits on the 26,000 gay
couples who have registered as domestic partners.
The law is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, but neither side
in the debate left court Tuesday with a clear indication of how
Judge Loren McMasters would rule after he took the matter under
consideration.
``The two sides are totally sure the initiative is clear and
unambiguous on its face, but it means two entirely different
things'' to them, McMasters said after peppering opposing lawyers
with equally pointed questions that never betrayed his leanings.
Although Proposition 22 has been law for more than four years,
the central issue during Tuesday's nearly two hours of oral
arguments was whether voters intended to prevent gays from
garnering any spousal privileges or merely to preserve the
institution of marriage itself.
Plaintiff's attorney Robert Tyler said that if lawmakers wanted
to grant domestic partners legal recognition that made them married
``in everything but name only,'' they should have been required to
do it by taking the matter to voters.
Arguing on behalf of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who assumed his
predecessor's role as a defendant in the case once he ousted Davis
from office in last year's recall, Deputy Attorney General Kathy
Lynch said the new law's opponents were trying to inject
Proposition 22 with a meaning it never had.
``If they wanted to tailor Proposition 22 to limit or prevent
the Legislature from giving rights to other parties, they should
have done so,'' Lynch said. ``When the people vote on an
initiative, they only get to vote on what's in front of them, so
you can't say they were voting on domestic partnerships here.''
Lawyer Scott Emblidge, representing Secretary of State Kevin
Shelley, went even further, accusing Proposition 22's supporters of
deliberately soft-selling the initiative's scope to get it by
voters and then engaging in ``a bait and switch.''
``There's a difference between what the voter's could have been
told and what they were told,'' he said.
In 1999, California became the first state to allow gay and
lesbian couples, as well as unmarried opposite-sex couples over age
62, to register as domestic partners.
Three years ago, the Legislature passed a measure providing
registered twosomes about a dozen rights previously available only
to heterosexual spouses or next of kin, including the right to make
medical decisions for incapacitated partners, to sue for a
partner's wrongful death and to adopt a partner's child.
The expanded domestic partnership bill set to take effect next
year expands on those efforts by extending to registered couples
every other marriage-based entitlement that could be amended under
state law without a two-thirds vote.
It does not authorize marriages between same-sex couples, but it
would guarantee them legal and financial benefits ranging from the
ability to file joint income taxes to the standing to petition
courts for child support and alimony.
David Codell, an attorney representing Equality California, the
state's largest gay rights lobbying group, noted that during the
year since the new law was passed, domestic partnerships benefits
have become widely accepted as a compromise position now that gay
couples are legally marrying in Massachusetts.
``In a very short period, it's become old-fashioned to argue
that offering legal protections to same-sex couples is tantamount
to permitting them to marry,'' he said.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)