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 News from Around the Americas | July 2005 
California Domestic Partner Law Intact
 Associated Press
San Francisco, California - Handing gays an important legal victory, the California Supreme Court has let stand a new law granting registered domestic partners many of the same rights and protections available to married couples.
Without comment, the justices Wednesday unanimously declined to review lower-court rulings that said the law does not conflict with a voter-approved measure against gay marriage.
Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who leaves Thursday to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, did not vote.
The domestic partner law, signed in 2003 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, represents the nation's most comprehensive recognition of gay domestic rights, short of the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts and civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut.
The California law grants registered couples virtually every spousal right available under state law except the ability to file a joint tax return.
The Campaign for California Families, along with state Sen. Pete Knight, challenged the law, saying it undermines Proposition 22 -- the 2000 initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Knight, a Republican who died after the lawsuit was filed, was the author of that measure, which passed with 61 percent of the vote.
But the high court left intact an appeals court ruling that said that Proposition 22's language is clearly limited to "marriage," not domestic partnerships.
Opponents of the law said Wednesday they hope to qualify a ballot measure asking voters to overturn the decision.
"Certainly, this reflects the importance of the people of California rising up to ensure that their vote in 2000 is counted and not overlooked by the courts," said Robert Tyler, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, another group that had asked the justices to overturn the law.
Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the "anti-gay industry's" reaction to the decision means "they won't stop until essentially the existence of lesbians and gay men is eradicated." |
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