Prop 8 is it Legal

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Prop 8 was illegal.

Marriage is at least in part a civic institution. There are laws and benefits surrounding the formalized legal relationship that is called "marriage." You would have to be blind to the facts to deny this.


Courts also did not have the authority to force desegregation by judicial decree. They did it anyways, because it was the right thing to do.

To the extent the marriage affects contracts and responsibilities for the care of children it is a proper matter of government cognizance. The state ought not to involve itself with consensual sexual relations among mentally competent adults, but it has to involve itself with the associated issues of property ownership, inheritance, care of children etc..

ruveyn

It will certainly be appealed, and a local article speculated that the opinion written by the judge actually was written for an audience of 1: Kennedy on the Supreme Court. I haven't read the opinion, but it sounds like it took a very sensible approach, and I sincerely hope it sways the appeals. It is the right time in social history to make a change like allowing gay marriage. I did not come by that lightly, as I did have moral discomfort on the whole thing, but I also know families headed by single sex couples and I know the difficulties they face because they cannot marry. A few years ago I asked the question, "has something in society changed that would affect the meaning of marriage and the traditions behind it?" and the answer is, yes. Much has changed, and it is time to reflect that in our laws, whether everyone is completely comfortable with it on a moral level or not.

Two different friends posted in celebration on their facebook pages yesterday, and neither is directly affected by the change. We just live in a time and place where we've come to know this change has to happen: gay marriage is the right thing to do.

Don't forget health care power of attorney.

None of those issues are relevant to marriage. You can own property with a right of survivorship with whomever you want (being married does not do this automatically except under a state's intestacy laws). You can will your estate to whomever you want...even to the exclusion of all blood relatives. Any "children" you have can be entrusted to the care of whomever you designate. Being a blood relative (as a general rule) does not give you a superior right to be their caregiver. Your power of attorney (for anything) can be whomever you wish to entrust with such a duty.

Granted, before people bothered to draft legal documents to these purposes, most just relied on the status of "spouse" to have it handed to them on legal presumption, but that is an outdated practice...even for heterosexual couples.

Gay "marriage" will convey nothing of meaning in any legal context the state is capable of granting.

A will can be contested, hospitals can deny a parter the right to be by their dying partner's side, children can and have been taken from the parent that didn't adopt because children can only be adopted by one male and one female...

The fact is you can go running around trying to get the legal rights and protections married couples take for granted, but they aren't guaranteed to you outside of a legal marriage.

Let's not forget one very important thing... marriage means just as much to a gay couple as it does to a straight couple. It's a promise of commitment. You can't get an equivalent in this society.

Wills can and are contested...often by greedy jerks who are mad they were left out. It's a hard thing to defeat a validly executed will. Hospitals, by and large, do not deny anyone permission to visit a person admitted for care except perhaps when they are in the ICU and visitation must be kept at a bare minimum. Adoption is a matter of what the court thinks is best for the child. So, I suppose you are arguing children have been entrusted to the care of a gay or lesbian couple and the CPS has stepped in to remove them from the home. I'm no fan of CPS and have seen them remove kids from perfectly normal heterosexual homes because of the bias of the case worker.



They aren't guaranteed to a legally married couple either. I see those "rights" messed with all the time.

Yes it will and it does by all the points you just acted like as if you dismissed (which you didn't, you just stated that you can get all the same legal rights by jumping through more hoops).

Well, let me correct you on your misunderstanding.

If you are legally married, what do you get?

If you die without a will, the laws of intestacy in the state you were a legal resident in controls who gets your property and assets. If you don't want the courts meddling in this matter, appointing someone who could get a sizable fee (varies from state to state) and don't want your heirs to wait years for a resolution, you draft a will which stipulates all of this. You also would have an estate plan where assets are defined with established "payable upon death" beneficiaries, your property is jointly owned with rights of surviorship (land) and vehicles are jointly owned so that the surviving owner 100% owns the vehicle WITHOUT dealing with the probate process. All that can pass outside the probate process is exempt from estate valuation for purposes of estate taxation (I know a nice deal about this topic).

So, congrats. Two gay guys can marry and subject their "heirs" or whatever to the headache of intestacy law. Oh, that's right....two guys CAN'T have kids of their own and most intestacy laws would then debate if siblings, cousins, second cousins or just the state takes the value of the estate (if the spouse dies along with the decedent). NO. YOU WANT AN ESTATE PLAN, NOT THE "PROTECTION" THAT "MARRIED PEOPLE" GET.

There is no real "benefit" that married people get. In fact, when you examine things you will find that two people cohabitation without getting married actually can enjoy all the legal benefits of a "married" couple via legal instruments affordably available without the penalties most married couples incur by the legal recognition.

No, it's not guaranteed even with a legal marriage, but it's a lot less likely to be meddled with.

As for CPS (who I was NOT talking about...) It has it's problems and biased case workers are certainly one of them, but you saved my life once upon a time.

I was referring to judges ordering the adopted child into someone else's care because the surviving parent wasn't able to legally adopt them.

1) Marriage invalidates all previous wills and testamentary instruments. The mere fact of marrying a person gives the spouse a substantive claim to the estate of the other spouse. While this can be overcome with a new will, it requires an affirmative act on the part of the testator. The same is not true for cohabitants or registered partnerships (although that can vary by jurisdiction).

2) Dissolution of marriage by divorce invalidates all bequests to a former spouse. The same is not true of dissolution of a cohabitant relationship.

3) Most insurance and investment income vehicles provide survivorship benefits for spouses, but for no other class of person.

4) Many insurance policies cover the liabilities of the spouse and children of an insured, but no other class of person.

5) Marriage creates a host of legal presumptions in a variety of areas of public and private law. For example, in Canada, the spouse of an accused is not a compellable witness in criminal proceeding. The same is not true of a cohabitant.

Saying to a same sex couple, "you can manage to accrue the same benefits privately," is no different than standing at the water fountain and telling a non-white person, "you can get water from that pump over there."

This is the case here in America, too.

Perhaps, but big deal. If you have the presence of mind to have a will, you'll just redo it. Ineffective benefit at best.



Again, see above point.



Unless they have some really whacked policy, this only applies IF the person never designates specific beneficiaries. In that case, the policy invokes a clause that pre-determines who would qualify. Where specific beneficiaries are designated, that controls.



This is rapidly changing. Insurance companies care about money. If covering "significant others" of gays and lesbians makes them money they will do so. Being married never gives you automatic benefits...you still have to pay extra for the coverage.



Your point is valid at the moment, but I'd not be surprised if there or here in the US such an issue was appealed and upheld as applying equally. Then again, I'm seeing a shift to take it away even from married couples. So, this could end up in either direction.



An interesting analogy, but you are stepping a long distance to make it. Virginia (US) had a landmark case abolishing a prohibition from a black man being able to marry a white woman. Clearly, there is a difference between denying two people of different races the right to marry just because they are of different races and saying two people of the same gender should be allowed to marry. There are also laws against minors being able to marry without parental consent...an odd policy since people used to get married around 12-13 not too long ago in human history.

I am not talking about the proceeds of insurance policies, I am talking about a surving spouse's entitlement to a continuation of a deceased spouse's income from an annuity or a pension.

For example, my father receives superannuation pension income. If he predeceases my mother, she will continue to receive 50% of his pension payments until her death. If my parents were not married, however, she would not be entitled to it. There is no way for individual workers to require their pension plans to provide survivor benefits outside the class of persons who are designated to receive them.