New Challenge to CA DP Law

March 29, 2005

SACRAMENTO — The California law that provides same-sex couples with many of the same rights as heterosexual married couples is being challenged before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Robert Tyler, attorney for the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, last week argued the law, which took effect in January, undermines the will of voters as expressed in the state's Proposition 22, which defines marriage as a union of heterosexuals and bars lawmakers from granting marriage-style benefits to domestic partners.

There is a patent on marriage, lawyer Robert H. Tyler told the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento on Friday, adding that the patent is held by opposite sex couples.

Tyler represents the Alliance Defense Fund which is fighting same-sex marriage in California and a number of other states.

The domestic partner law was passed by the Legislature in 2003 and signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis. It went into effect in January.

The law's protections for families headed by same-sex couples include: community property, mutual responsibility for debt, parenting rights including obligations for custody and support, and the ability to claim a partner's body after death. The law does not allow for joint filing for state taxes and certain other protections under state law. It also does not provide access to over 1,000 federal protections that heterosexual married couples enjoy.

The Alliance Defense Fund and other conservative groups argue that the law violates Prop 22 a voter initiative that the ADF maintains blocks both same-sex marriage and the according of the benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.

The groups mounted a legal challenge which was denied by a court last September. The group then appealed. Last December an appeals court justice rejected the case and the group sought redress from a three justice panel of the court.

What it does is it undermines Proposition 22, Tyler told the justices on Friday.

Attorneys for the state and a dozen pairs of domestic partners said voters could only presume from the ballot measure that they were making a statement about marriage, not about domestic partnerships.

The voters of the state are entitled to get what they voted on. No more and no less, said Deputy Attorney General Kathleen Lynch in defense of the domestic partners law. How would a voter know they were going to vote on more?

The three justices repeatedly noted the simplicity of the 14-word ballot measure, saying it said nothing about rights of domestic partners nor the Legislature's ability to grant them.

The justices did not indicate when it would rule.