Ersatz Gay Marriage: “Confusing Twilight Zone”

 The majority of Democratic presidential candidates and even some folks who consider themselves fair-minded pretend that supporting civil unions–the separate but equal remedy for gay family relationships– gives us our civil rights. Across the country, however, LGBT experience in domestic partnerships, reciprocal beneficiary relationships, and yes, civil unions, has demonstrated  that it just isn’t so.

CA is stepping into the foreground, again, to argue in court that only marriage is equal. Ersatz gay marriage just does not cut it.

Courts, politicos, opinion leaders, and those committed to true equality should stop ignoring the success of gay marriage in MA for the past three years.

MA is the only state in which committed LGBT couples have clear rights and responsibilities because they are married. Everyone knows what marriage is. Only attorneys state by state really know what the distinctions are between a civil union in NJ or CT or VT and soon in NH. Or a domestic partnership is in CA. Or what a reciprocal beneficiary protection is in Hawaii.

When the ACLU, Equality California, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Lambda Legal filed briefs last week in a coordinated case in CA seeking marriage rights for gay people, the challenge for full equality had its basis in the inequalities of domestic partnerships and it could have an anchor in reality on the East Coast of the country. MA has proved that marriage equality works.

The Advocate of Aug. 23 reported that Lambda Legal senior counsel Jennifer Pizer said in a statement that anything less than marriage is a “confusing twilight zone” for gay and lesbian couples. “We know this because we answer the distress calls every day—calls that began with the first statewide domestic partner bill in 1999 and haven’t slowed as the law broadened over the years. To the contrary, the distress calls have increased as more couples register, hoping to shield their families, and encounter inconsistent, incomplete protections. We’ve welcomed the supreme court’s invitation to explain how far domestic partnerships fall short of full marriage.”