Same-sex marriage in CA: what happens next?
I've seen a lot of confusion over what's going to be happening over the next few months. Here's an attempt to clear some of that up, with a sort of a timeline.
- Unfortunately, the same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco in 2004 were nullified by the CA Supreme Court in Lockyer v. San Francisco. Those marriages have not been reinstated by this latest decision; to be legally married, those couples will have to get married again.
- This week's decision has no effect on marriage as a means of immigration, because immigration law is controlled by the US government, not by CA.
- The decision becomes effective in 30 days, unless the Court extends that to 60 days; then it may take a few days for the Appeals court to issue a directive to implement the decision.
- According to one LA Times article, "opponents could ask the court to rehear the case. And even if the court declined, that could delay the effective date up to 90 days."
- The "defendants" (the people opposed to same-sex marriage) are asking the Court to delay implementing the decision 'til November. I have no idea how likely the Court is to go along with that, but my impression is that it's unlikely.
- Presumably if there isn't a delay, then same-sex marriages can happen statewide from mid-June or mid-July through at least early November (and, I hope, forever afterward). Yay!
- CA does not have a wacky law like MA's against letting out-of-state people marry. (See the San Francisco County Clerk's FAQ) I imagine that quite a lot of same-sex couples from all over the US will come to CA to get married. I'm guessing that some of them will then return to their home states and sue to have their marriages recognized, although a fair number of states explicitly prohibit such recognition.
- (Btw, you can reserve a civil ceremony at City Hall in SF online if you're so inclined, but since we don't know when the ruling will go into effect, scheduled appointments may expire before the ruling goes into effect. Of course, you can also get married anywhere else in CA. I wonder if some people will go get married in Orange County or other bastions of conservatism just 'cause they can. :) )
- Several articles have suggested that there'll be an appeal to the US Supreme Court, but according to some very reliable sources (such as the Equality California FAQ, and a separate quote I saw from a lawyer with a background in constitutional law), that's not true; the state supreme court has final say on matters of the state constitution, except in cases where there are Federal constitutional issues, which there aren't in this case. (It's true that some people did try to appeal the MA decision to the US Supreme Court, but the court refused to hear the appeal, and I suspect (with no evidence, just a guess) that the request was just political posturing; I doubt anyone expected that to actually work.)
- (And incidentally, various groups would like to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, but that seems to me very unlikely to happen. It's failed to pass in Congress three times in the past several years, and as of 2006, 51% of Americans thought it should be up to the states, while only 43% were in favor of a US constitutional amendment.)
- Once the decision goes into effect, couples who want to get married can do so by acquiring a marriage license from any county in the state, and then having a qualified person perform the wedding within 90 days.
- There's a group that wants to pass a CA constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman; they're trying to get that amendment onto the ballot for this November's election. (State constitutional amendments regularly appear on the ballot in CA; it's part of our state's wacky charm.) The petition to get the initiative on the ballot has collected over a million signatures; the state is currently checking the signatures to see whether there are enough valid ones to qualify for the ballot. Given that they have nearly twice as many signatures as they need (as I understand it), I'm guessing there'll be enough valid ones, so I expect to see the initiative on the ballot.
- Assuming it makes the ballot, in November we'll vote on a state constitutional amendment.
- If the amendment gets more than 50% of the vote, then it will become part of the state constitution. I'm optimistically hoping this won't happen; a Field Poll in 2006 indicated that 43% of Californians were actively in favor of same-sex marriage, with 50% opposed, and my impression is that voters in general tend to be hesitant about amending constitutions on this issue (as opposed to just passing laws). I can't find any survey data about what people think about this particular proposed amendment (anyone have any data on this?), and I imagine this week's ruling might change some minds in both directions anyway, but still, I think it'll be pretty hard for them to get 50% of the vote. But let's not get complacent about this.
- Even if the amendment passes (and thus invalidates part of this week's S.C. decision), as someone on a mailing list pointed out, the Court's statement that sexual orientation is a suspect class (that is, subject to special protection from discrimination) will presumably still stand; that may end up being the most important part of this ruling.
- If the amendment passes, it's unclear what will happen to the status of couples who get married between now and November.
