California Domestic Partner Law
Effective Jan. 1
by Mark Worrall, 365Gay.com from the Web, December 28, 2004
San Francisco, CA Dec. 27 -- A California law granting same-sex couples nearly identical legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses will go into effect New Year's Day.
The law expands legislation passed in 1999 that allowed California gay and lesbian couples to register as domestic partners.
In 2001 the Legislature gave registered partners the right to make medical decisions for incapacitated partners, to sue for a partner's wrongful death and to adopt a partner's child.
Under the new law, most of the other rights and responsibilities of marriage are added.
These include: community property, mutual responsibility for debt, parenting rights and obligations such as custody and support, and the ability to claim a partner's body after death.
The law does not allow for joint tax filing and certain other protections under state law, and does not provide access to over 1,000 federal protections that married couples enjoy.
The Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibility Act is considered by most LGBT civil rights advocates as a stopgap measure until the right to marry is granted in California.
The new law survived a lawsuit brought by two of the conservative groups also fighting suits over gay marriage in the state.
Lawyers for the two groups sought to have the law declared illegal, claiming it violates the spirit and intent of a 2000 ballot initiative approved by voters that holds California will only recognize unions between a man and a woman as valid.
In September Sacramento Superior Court Judge Loren E. McMaster said that there is nothing in the language of Proposition 22 that "restrict[s] the grant of rights and benefits to persons who have registered as domestic partners, even if those rights closely parallel the rights enjoyed by married couples."
Meanwhile the marriage issue continues to work its way through the court system.
This month San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer heard arguments from both sides.
Kramer has asked to see additional written arguments by January 14th and is not expected to issue a ruling until possibly April.
Ultimately it will be up to the California Supreme Court to rule on same-sex marriage unless the Legislature acts before then.
Assembly Member Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) will re-introduce legislation in the upcoming session that would allow same-sex couples to marry.
Also coming January 1, under another California law affecting same-sex couples it will be illegal for insurance companies to offer health insurance benefits that do not also cover the domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees.
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