Wed 18 Jun 2008
California Dreamin’
Posted by Liza under Opinion, Knocked Up Again
Unless you’ve been living under a rock this week, you know that lesbian and gay couples have been tying the knot in no-shit legitimate weddings in California.
Unlike Massachusetts, California doesn’t have an antiquated “if the marriage is illegal in your home state, we can’t do it here,” law. (I know they haven’t been generally enforcing that, but I think it places the validity of marriages of couples who live in DOMA states at risk, which is why we haven’t seriously considered a Massachusetts marriage.)
But California. I think the marriages being performed there now are full blown legal. I don’t think they’re at risk like the exciting and beautiful but legally ambiguous and eventually voided February 2004 weddings authorized by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
True, it is possible that the radical right wing anti-gay activists will succeed in prohibiting future same sex marriages through their November ballot initiative. But I understand that the initiative has no language voiding existing legally valid marriages.
There is a window of opportunity here — at the very least. Hopefully, a door has opened not just a window, and the radical religious right won’t be able to slam it shut again.
Having said that, we actually have no plans to go to California and get married.
For one thing, have you priced airplane tickets recently? Yikes.
I had a brief fantasy of going to BlogHer and working getting married into the trip, but the timing doesn’t work. BlogHer is the same weekend that one of my cousins is getting married in Milwaukee. And that’s her real wedding; for us, this would be getting a valuable piece of paper, but our real wedding was in 2003.
I don’t want to miss a family wedding for a piece of paper — how can I demand respect for my family if I don’t grant it to other families?
Also? We’re about to have a baby, in case you managed to miss that. That means any disposable income we might have had is about to evaporate into a sea of random baby gear, attorney fees for the legal adoption, and “stuff like that.”
Maybe we’ll take a celebratory post-adoption trip across the country with a newborn and a toddler, but we might actually not test our sanity quite that much. And of course the adoption might take longer and might involve expensive horrible delays, like Noah’s did.
Which puts us at after the election. And the possibility that this was a window, not a door.
So. For now, California dreamin’.





June 19th, 2008 at 7:09 am
I would think that if they did include language about invalidating existing marriages they would run afoul of the US Constitution’s ban on “ex post facto” laws (Art. 1 ยง 10 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section10)
putting the Amendment at risk even if passed, which is probably why the language isn’t there.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Yeah, I’m right there with you. I would love to get for real legally married. Although we never did get up to Canada when we were living an hour away.
We could even get (re)married on our wedding anniversary by the same pastor since he’s moved out to LA.
But I don’t really want to fly when I am super pregnant, and we should really save our money and vacation time for after the birth of this kid.
Although I think a shotgun wedding would be kind of funny.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I think it’s admirable of you to choose going to your cousin’s wedding instead of getting married (again) yourself, but I wouldn’t write off the California ceremony as just a piece of paper. When you and Jill are recognized by the law as a married couple, that will be a big step for your family. If you had chosen to do that instead, I can’t imagine anyone would look down on you. (And if they did? Shame on them!)