Comments on: On Prop 8

By: Thom

Thom — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:45:01 +0000

I would disagree mildly that domestic partnership “approximates marriage in all but name,” even if we put the federal issue aside on the many rights that marriage provides that domestic partnership, as a purely state-based institution, cannot.

The requirements for who can enter into domestic partnership differs from those for marriage, and the procedures for entering into a domestic partnership differs in kind and tone from those for marriage. I’d wager even a marriage by a justice of the peace conveys a solemnity far different from signing the domestic partnership form and mailing it back in.

On the legal front, I’ve read and heard many stories about employers, medical staff and organizations and others, not treating domestic partnership correctly simply because they don’t understand it, even in California where it’s existed a while. Everyone knows what marriage means, but if your partner is dying in that hospital room, trying to explain your right to be there and to make decisions on the basis of your domestic partnership could mean the different between night and day, literally between life and death, in the amount of time it takes to educate the administrators.

In terms of financial impact, they’re different. Jeff and I are taxed on any domestic partner-related benefits we receive from our employers, while married couples are not (granted, that gets back largely to the federal issue).

And psychologically they’re very different, obviously. Recently Andrew Sullivan had included a poignant note from a California reader noting that while he had been accepted and treated kindly by his partner’s family the many years they’d been together and in a domestic partnership, it was only after they were married last week that his partner’s sister and family finally said “welcome to the family.”

I’m not saying that we won’t go ahead and apply for domestic partnership now that the right to marriage has been taken away from us. Faced with a choice between some rights and recognition and none at all, I might well choose the former, and I wouldn’t suggest that anyone should not do so. But personally I don’t consider it anything at all like marriage, and a part of me isn’t sure that I should settle accept anything except full equality. It’s a decision Jeff and I are now faced with, so it’s not academic.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:45:18 +0000

Now that the Democrats have taken over both houses of the State Legislature, we may see gay marriage in New York in the not-too-distant future. The Republican Senate was the only real obstacle.

I was in Beijing Airport with no internet access when I learned about Obama’s victory, but of course Prop 8 didn’t make it on the radar there. I couldn’t find anything in the Times about a result and it wasn’t till I got home that heard the icky news.

By: Esther

Esther — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:23:15 +0000

I feel heartsick about this. The worst thing is the lies that were told about how Proposition 8 supposedly presented a “threat” to families and children. A few years ago, I could have been detached. But they’re talking about my friends. As if their love could ever harm anyone, especially a child. As a Jew, I know from history what it’s like to have lies told about you, how dangerous that can be, how difficult it can be to bring truth to the forefront. I know what you’re saying about time being on our side. But it still hurts. I still have to ask: How can they do this to my friends, who are so good and decent and caring and gentle? It really hurts, much more than I ever imagined that it would.