Michael Dorf has this commentary on the California Marriage ruling. He begins:
Last week, the California Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in the nation’s most populous state. With the decision in In re Marriage Cases, California becomes only the second state in the country to grant same-sex couples the right to enter into marriages that are in name as well as substance the full equal of opposite-sex couples’ marriages.
Like the ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the 2003 case of Goodridge v. Dep’t of Public Health, last week’s California ruling rested in part on the fact that the state already provided same-sex couples the option of entering into state-sanctioned domestic partnerships (sometimes called “civil unions”) with the same legal benefits and responsibilities as marriage. Maintaining a separate name for the institution that applied where same-sex couples are involved, both the California and Massachusetts high courts said, was a form of second-class citizenship for the members of such couples . . .
Several years ago, ADF warned that civil unions are a trojan horse to conquer marriage. It was denied in the media by those who would redefine marriage. At the same time, they have repeatedly argued in court that civil unions should serve as a basis to redefine marriage.
