(no subject)

[browngirl]

Prop. 8 sponsors seek to nullify 18K gay marriages.

I wish I were surprised by this attempt to use the law to oppress people. I hope people are right that this won't be done because it would be a retroactive application of the law.

I do have two things to say, though:

1) People keep drawing parallels between the current fight for LGBT rights and the Civil Rights Movement. I believe in a lot of those parallels, and I wish someone smarter and more eloquent than I would take Dr. King's Why We Can't Wait as a springboard for explaining why we can't wait now.

2) I want to find all the people I saw say that those fighting for marriage equality are as bigoted (or worse OMGWTFBBQ) as those who support efforts like Proposition 8 and its ilk, and show this to them, and ask them if we are really morally worse than people trying to dismantle 18,000 families. I do not believe we are. I won't -- I would put friends in the middle of the ensuing fights -- but oh do I want to.

Comments

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Let's suppose that this travesty passes. How will they know which of the more than 18,000 couples that were married in California were same-sex couples, and which were not? Was gender listed on the marriage licenses? If not, How will they determine which couples are same sex? Are they going to force everyone to take a genetic test for gender? Will they force all couples who got married to "drop their pants" (which isn't always sufficient to determine gender)? Who gets to peek? What if the couple no longer lives in CA? What if one/both has died? Will national / state level survivor's benefits go away? Will they have to pay the survivor's benefits back to the nation/state/company/other (now-closest) next of kin? What if there was a separation/divorce, and you can only find one of the couple...will they take that person's word for it that their partner was the same sex (what a great way to get out of alimony ... "I live in another state, and I'm paying alimony. I claim that my ex living in CA was the same sex as I, therefore we were never married, ergo I don't have to pay alimony anymore. No I won't come to CA to prove my gender, I know what gender I am". (or else force CA to find the ex and make them prove their gender, while not making the one outside of CA prove theirs...)

It's totally unenforcable.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I surely hope so.