California domestic partner law
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The California domestic partner law provides virtually all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage in California to domestic partners. Thus, California's domestic partnership law has been effectively transformed into a civil union law.
It also makes large state contracts contingent on offering employees the same benefits for their domestic partners as for spouses.
According to Geoff Kors, an advocate of the law, up until that time no other US state had a similar law without a mandate from a Court to impliment such a law. Kors is executive director of [Equality California].
The cities of West Hollywood and San Francisco previously enacted similar laws which the state used as models in developing the state law.
According to The American Heritage® Book of English Usage, the phrase "domestic partner" first appeared around 1985 in the context of living arrangements. It was in that year that West Hollywood enacted the first ever domestic partner legislation and West Hollywood city council member John Heilman is generally believed to have coined the phrase.
Threats To Roll Back Domestic Partnerships
Attempts to amend the California Constitution on the June 2006 ballot banning same-sex marriage and rolling back domestic partnership rights suffered a setback in December of 2005 when two anti-gay groups conceded that they would not qualify for the primary 2006 ballot but both groups have promised to be back for the November 2006 general election.ProtectMarriage.com, gathered fewer than half the 598,000 signatures required.
VoteYesMarriage.com, led by Randy Thomasson of the Campaign for Children and Families, stated that the group would not circulate petitions until it raises enough money to guarantee a successful drive by paid signature gatherers.
But Geoffrey Kors is busy preparing his troops for a November, 2006 battle. According to published reports in the Los Angeles Times, Kors stated, "We don't take very seriously their claim that they're not moving forward for next year." Kors further suggested that the pullback by conservatives may be a ruse to stir support among conservative backers.
As Lee Romney of the Los Angeles Times has reported, "Focus on the Family has already begun putting money into ProtectMarriage.com."
One opponent of the initiative believes that if Focus on the Family dumps a ton of dough into this thing, then they could get the signatures. In a side note, AFSCME Local 910 labor union leader Michael Boggs is mulling about having AFSCME circulate their own ballot initiative that would ban paid signature gathers.
Kors told the Times, "It would be very surprising that the extreme right would give up on the largest state in the nation. We are moving full steam ahead preparing for what we think will be a major battle in November."
See also
- Domestic partnerships in California
- domestic partnership
- gay rights
- same-sex marriage in California
- Paid Family Leave
External links
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