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February 28, 2013 07:35 PM UTC

Civil Unions: Automatic Upgrade to Marriage?

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Phoenix Rising

There's lots of news to be had today on gay rights.

First, the Colorado State House Judiciary Committee today heard arguments on the Civil Unions bill. The bill is expected to pass easily through committee votes and then on the floor with some Republican support.

But the big news for Coloradans looking forward to more gay rights in the state may have come from the U.S. Department of Justice's amicus brief today in the Supreme Court review of California's Proposition 8. In it the Obama Administration argues that denying the name "marriage" to gay couples while providing domestic partner benefits equivalent to marriage fails any test of scrutiny the Court might choose – essentially, that marriage status should be conferred in states who offer civil union status to LGBT couples. Now, Amendment 43 bars this recognition, but presumably that would be overturned if the Supreme Court agrees to the Administration's argument.

Comments

8 thoughts on “Civil Unions: Automatic Upgrade to Marriage?

    1. It would be a plan if it was something more than removing a legal fiction.

      Civil unions are marriage in all but name; denying the right to use that name simply because of someone's sexual orientation is discrimination under any standard a court of law could choose to review.

      Think of it as removing the cover on the Spirit of Justice. Everyone who knew anything about it knew that her breast was bare – it has been since the statue was created, and it's been out in public for decades. Throwing a drape in front of her didn't change what everyone knew her appearance to be, and removing the drape didn't create some sudden deceiptful shocking exposure.

      Civil unions has been a drape – a deceipt cloaking what everyone really knew was really there, and lessening the experience in so doing.

      1. Separate but equal, amirite? Nothing wrong with that from ArapaGOrP's viewpoint.

        I suppose this is a step up from defending the GOrP's disgraceful derailment of the legislature in order to preven civil unions. An acceptance of the inevitable. But bigotry always stinks.

    2. Oh, and as to any co-ordination between the President and the Colorado legislature, I think you can probably kiss that notion goodbye. First, this is only an amicus brief – the Administration isn't a party to the suit, and such briefs rarely play a major role in a case. Second, the timing sucks; a real plan would have pushed civil unions through before the brief was filed. Third, it wasn't known until Thursday what if any brief the Administration would file – and this particular line of reasoning was not widely expected.

      So tuck your conspiracy theory hard-on back in your pants and relax safe in your tin foil hat for the weekend.

    3. Curses!   He's on to us, comrades!    Quick, someone dispatch Flamingo Team Six to silence him, before he can alert his superiors to our plan!

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