POINT OF VIEW

from Last Week's Court Ruling Against Marriage Discrimination...
Marriage in the United States has always been a civil matter. Civil authorities may permit religious leaders to solemnize marriages but not to determine who may enter or leave a civil marriage. Religious leaders may determine independently whether to recognize a civil marriage or divorce but that recognition or lack thereof has no effect on the relationship under state law.
A person may not marry unless he or she has the legal capacity to consent to marriage.
California, like every other state, has never required that individuals entering a marriage be willing or able to
procreate.
When California became a state in 1850, marriage was understood to require a husband and a wife.
The states have always required the parties to give their free consent to a marriage. Because slaves were considered property of others at the time, they lacked the legal capacity to consent and were thus unable to marry. After emancipation, former slaves viewed their ability to marry as one of the most important new rights they had gained.
Many states, including California, had laws restricting the race of marital partners so that whites and non-whites could not marry each other.
Racial restrictions on an individual's choice of marriage partner were deemed unconstitutional under the California Constitution in 1948 and under the United States Constitution in 1967. An individual's exercise of his or her right to marry no longer depends on his or her race nor on the race of his or her chosen partner.
Under coverture, a woman's legal and economic identity was subsumed by her husband's upon marriage. The husband was the legal head of household. Coverture is no longer part of the marital bargain.
Marriage between a man and a woman was traditionally organized based on presumptions of a division of labor along gender lines. Men were seen as suited for certain types of work and women for others. Women were seen as suited to raise children and men were seen as suited to provide for the family.
The development of no-fault divorce laws made it simpler for spouses to end marriages and allowed spouses to define their own roles within a marriage.
In 1971, California amended Cal Civ Code ß 4101, which had previously set the age of consent to marriage at twenty-one years for males and eighteen years for females, to read "[a]ny unmarried person of the age of 18 years or upwards, and not otherwise disqualified, is capable of consenting to and consummating marriage
California has eliminated marital obligations based on the gender of the spouse. Regardless of their sex or gender,marital partners share the same obligations to one another and to their dependants. As a result of Proposition 8, California nevertheless requires that a marriage consist of one man and one woman.
Eliminating gender and race restrictions in marriage has not deprived the institution of marriage of its vitality.
Marriage is the state recognition and approval of a couple's choice to live with each other, to remain committed to one another and to form a household based on their own feelings about one another and to join in an economic partnership and support one another and any dependents.
The state has many purposes in licensing and fostering marriage. Some of the state's purposes benefit the persons married while some benefit the state:
a. Facilitating governance and public order by organizing individuals into cohesive family units.
b. Developing a realm of liberty, intimacy and free decision-making by spouses
c. Creating stable households.
d. Legitimating children.
e. Assigning individuals to care for one another and thus limiting the public's liability to care for the vulnerable.
f. Facilitating property ownership.
States and the federal government channel benefits, rights and responsibilities through marital status. Marital status affects immigration and citizenship, tax policy, property and inheritance rules and social benefit programs.
Marriage creates economic support obligations between consenting adults and for their dependents.
Marriage benefits both spouses by promoting physical and psychological health. Married individuals are less likely to engage in behaviors detrimental to health, like smoking or drinking heavily. Married individuals live longer on average than unmarried individuals.
Material benefits, legal protections and social support resulting from marriage can increase wealth and improve psychological well-being for married spouses.
The long-term nature of marriage allows spouses to specialize their labor and encourages spouses to increase household efficiency by dividing labor to increase productivity.
The tangible and intangible benefits of marriage flow to a married couple's children.
Same-sex love and intimacy are well-documented in human history. The concept of an identity based on object desire; that is, whether an individual desires a relationship with someone of the opposite sex (heterosexual), same sex (homosexual) or either sex (bisexual), developed in the late nineteenth century.
Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of sexual, affectional or romantic desires for and attractions to men, women or both sexes. An individual's sexual orientation can be expressed through self-identification, behavior or attraction. The vast majority of people are consistent in self-identification, behavior and attraction throughout their adult lives.
Sexual orientation is commonly discussed as a characteristic of the individual. Sexual orientation is fundamental to a person's identity and is a distinguishing characteristic that defines gays and lesbians as a discrete group. Proponents' assertion that sexual orientation cannot be defined is contrary to the weight of the evidence.
Proponents' campaign for Proposition 8 assumed voters understood the existence of homosexuals as individuals distinct from heterosexuals.
Individuals do not generally choose their sexual orientation. No credible evidence supports a finding that an individual may, through conscious decision, therapeutic intervention or any other method, change his or her sexual orientation.
California has no interest in asking gays and lesbians to change their sexual orientation or in reducing the number of gays and lesbians in California.
Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital unions. Like opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples have happy, satisfying relationships and form deep emotional bonds and strong commitments to their partners. Standardized measures of relationship satisfaction, relationship adjustment and love do not differ depending on whether a couple is same-sex
or opposite-sex.
California law permits and encourages gays and lesbians to become parents through adoption, foster parenting or assistive reproductive technology. Approximately eighteen percent of same-sex couples in California are raising children.
Same-sex couples receive the same tangible and intangible benefits from marriage that opposite-sex couples receive.
51. Marrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals.
Domestic partnerships lack the social meaning associated with marriage, and marriage is widely regarded as the definitive expression of love and commitment in the United States.
Domestic partners are not married under California law. California domestic partnerships may not be recognized in other states and are not recognized by the federal government.
The availability of domestic partnership does not provide gays and lesbians with a status equivalent to marriage because the cultural meaning of marriage and its associated benefits are intentionally withheld from same-sex couples in domestic partnerships.
Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages.
The children of same-sex couples benefit when their parents can marry.