Catholic World News News Feature

California approves domestic-partners law September 04, 2003

The California legislature on Wednesday approved a law that would grant unmarried couples, same sex or opposite sex, the same rights as married couples, enshrining what some call gay marriage in everything but name.

Opponents of the bill, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis, say it violates the will of the voters who approved Proposition 22 in 2000, a referendum that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. But supporters said the new law doesn't create gay marriage, but only gives many of the benefits to unmarried couples. "Nobody is talking about gay marriage except the people who are trying to wave it around as a straw man issue," said Assemblyman John Longville, a Democrat.

When signed by Davis, the law will take effect on January 1, 2005. It will give unmarried, cohabiting couples, which the bill called "domestic partners," the ability to ask for child support and alimony, the right to health coverage under a partner's plan, and the ability to make funeral arrangements for a partner.

It would also give domestic partners access to family student housing, bereavement and family care leave, and exemptions from estate and gift taxes, and in the event of a partner's death, the authority to consent to an autopsy, donate organs, and to make funeral arrangements.

It also would prevent courts from forcing a domestic partner to testify against the other partner in a trial, and it would give domestic partners the ability to apply for absentee ballots on a partner's behalf. Two years ago, the Legislature passed a measure giving domestic partners about a dozen rights previously available only to heterosexual spouses or the next of kin, including the right to make medical decisions for incapacitated partners, to sue for a partner's wrongful death, and to adopt a partner's child.

In fact, it isn't clear what differences remain with traditional marriage, except the name and the fact that the rights do not carry over outside California as marriage rights do.

The new law will put California on the same field as Vermont which has offered civil unions for same-sex couples for several years.