Prop 8 On Trial: Bourgeois Moonbats Plead Sanity
by Charles WinecoffUPDATE: After this post was published on Monday, Larry O’Connor (a.k.a. “Stage Right”) invited me to join him on The Stage Right Show on Blog Talk Radio to weigh in on the Prop 8 trial. During our conversation, he asked me a question I’ve asked people on both sides of the issue many times – without ever receiving a proper answer: What exactly is the difference between “domestic partnership” and “marriage” in California? All I could tell Larry was that the answer remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time.
Well, thanks to fellow Big Hollywood contributor Adam Baldwin, we now have an important clue. Herewith, I present excerpts from Section 297.5 of the official California Family Code (the words in bold are mine):
(a) Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.
(c) A surviving registered domestic partner, following the death of the other partner, shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon a widow or a widower.
(d) The rights and obligations of registered domestic partners with respect to a child of either of them shall be the same as those of spouses. The rights and obligations of former or surviving registered domestic partners with respect to a child of either of them shall be the same as those of former or surviving spouses.
(e) To the extent that provisions of California law adopt, refer to, or rely upon, provisions of federal law in a way that otherwise would cause registered domestic partners to be treated differently than spouses, registered domestic partners shall be treated by California law as if federal law recognized a domestic partnership in the same manner as California law.
Sounds an awful lot like “marriage equality” to me. I’m impressed! Yet somehow, the anti-H8ers always manage to avoid any mention of section 297.5 – or any other specifics of state law - preferring instead to keep us all in the dark as they browbeat us with tales of past discrimination.
Keep 297.5 in mind as you read the original post about the War of the Word…. END UPDATE
In a horrendous week when an entire island nation was reduced to rubble and hundreds of thousands of people were left for dead – or homeless, without food or water – Ivy Leaguers, PBS donors, ACLU supporters, and other humanitarians descended on a San Francisco courthouse to turn their fetish for state-sanctioned self-esteem into a federal case.
Perry v. Schwarzenegger is the gay marriage - excuse me, “marriage equality” - case brought against the State of California by a lesbian couple from Berkeley (Kristen Perry and Sandra Stier) and a gay couple from Burbank (Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo), both of whom petitioned for marriage licenses after Proposition 8 passed in November 2008.

In case you haven’t heard, Prop 8 adds a clause to the state Constitution that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” (a state where domestic partnership already offers couples almost all the same rights, protections, and benefits as married spouses). The couples contend that the ban on same-sex marriage, which a rainbow majority of Californians (including blacks, Latinos, and even some gays) voted for, violates their federal constitutional rights. No surprises there.
Far more shocking is: a) nontraditional LGBTs’ sudden, hysterical need to “tie the knot” - a sado-masochistic fad? - and b) the fact that the plaintiffs are being represented by David Boies and Ted Olson, who you might remember from a little trial back in 2000 called “Bush v. Gore.” That’s right, the one the Left’s been holding onto for dear life ever since. (more…)



















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