Proposition 8: How Locals Want 'Marriage' Defined
The Bakersfield Californian
By James Burger
October 4, 2008

Proposition 8 has sparked a war of word. One word. Marriage.

Supporters oppose same-sex marriage.

“I think that marriage between a man and a woman is pro-family,” said Bakersfield homemaker Sherri Hampton, who donated $100 to help pass the initiative Nov. 4.

Opponents believe same-sex couples have an equal right to call their unions marriage.

Holley Arbeit, a Bakersfield educator who gave $100 to anti-8 efforts as a wedding gift to friends on their same-sex wedding day, said religious groups shouldn’t be trying to pressure society to follow their beliefs.

“It is not their right to stop (same-sex marriage) in people who don’t follow their same religious path,” she said.

While the battle lines are clear, the impacts of Proposition 8 passing are less certain.

HOW WE GOT HERE

In May, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Proposition 22 ban on same-sex marriages passed by voters in 2000 was unconstitutional because it was inherently unfair to give different names to civil unions that were essentially the same legally.

The result: same-sex marriages became legal in California on June 17.

Opponents of same-sex marriage responded with Proposition 8 — an initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot that would re-write the equity provisions of the California Constitution to outlaw marriage of any same-sex couple and invalidate the Supreme Court ruling.

Both sides are pouring millions of dollars collected from across the nation into the battle.

A recent poll showed Proposition 8 failing by nearly 17 percentage points statewide.

Even the conservative Central Valley trended against the proposition, with 49.8 percent opposing and 46.9 percent supporting the concept, according to the Field Research Corp. poll, taken in the first half of September.

WHAT'S AT STAKE

Domestic partnership rights in California have grown stronger since being created a decade ago.

Legal scholars say couples in the partnerships now enjoy nearly all the legal rights as married opposite-sex ones under state law.

But Robert Bradley Sears, executive director of the Charles R. Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation, Law and Public Policy at UCLA, said there are differences.

Same-sex couples must go through a different process to obtain a domestic partnership — and to dissolve the relationship, he said.

But the most powerful difference is that people know what the rights of married people are and they’re seldom questioned — something not always true with domestic partnerships, Sears said. Domestic partners can still, at times, face exclusion from their partners’ hospital rooms, employment benefits and other rights, he said.

It’s unclear whether Proposition 8 would eliminate same-sex marriages entered into between June 17 and Nov. 4, said David Cruz, a law professor at he University of Southern California.

Action to remove the right to marry has never been passed in the United States, he said.

Sears agrees there is significant uncertainty about the impacts of passage but said there could be a practical answer to the question.

Courts usually don’t apply statues retroactively and they have to look closely at the damage that could be done by making Proposition 8 retroactive.

“I think the harm is going to be found to be significant,” Sears said.

And it is significant, Sears said, that the court that would have the final say on the retroactivity of Proposition 8 would be the same court that overturned Proposition 22 in May.

PROPOSITION SUPPORTERS

Hampton said she felt betrayed when the Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22, which passed with a 61 percent majority. “The voters, what we said, didn’t matter,” she said.

Local Republican political strategist and business owner Stan Harper supports Proposition 8 because he believes same-sex couples have all the legal opportunities they need.

“Regardless of my personal inclinations, I philosophically believe a marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. “Anything a gay person needs to do can be done under the law.”

OPPONENTS

Daniel Nauman said he has faced things much worse than Proposition 8 in his 40 years.

Nauman opposes Proposition 8 but said its passage wouldn’t destroy what he and husband Roland Vallerand have together.

“We have a hard time understanding that losing a piece of paper would be that traumatic,” Nauman said. “We’ve both lived through decades of persecution and isolation to become two fairly well-adjusted men; ready to weather whatever is tossed at us as a couple, or taken away.”

Christian Flores, 27, said the chance Proposition 8 could take away his marriage to husband Michael Castaneda is very real and hurtful to them. “Right now we have been talking about getting a domestic partnership just in case,” he said.

But that’s not what they want, Flores said. “It doesn’t feel just the same. It’s something more,” Flores said of marriage. “It’s knowing that finally we’re being recognized as equal citizens. We pay the same taxes. We buy the same cars. We shop in the same stores. It’s civil rights. It’s human rights.”