The Ultimate Association: Same-Sex Marriage and the Battle Against Jim Crow’s Other Cousin

02/04/09 ADF Alliance Alert:

The Ultimate Association: Same-Sex Marriage and the Battle Against Jim Crow’s Other Cousin
Bryan K. Fair, 63 U. Miami L. Rev. 269 (2008)

(An excerpt is below. To view the full text, please use Westlaw, Lexis, a law library or alternative source.)

Twentieth-century American legal history is notable for a series of equal-rights struggles and partial, majestic triumphs. Since the 1950s, activists have insisted that the nation confront its formal policies of white supremacy and their legacies. Since the 1960s, women have demanded an end to unequal protection before the law and broader rights to control their bodies and the social, economic, and political conditions of their lives. And, since the 1970s, equality advocates have compelled Congress and the federal courts to address their disabled clients’ inferior status under the law. Although each of these landmark battles endures, with much work yet to be done to eliminate cumulative privilege for some Americans and cumulative disadvantage for others, those unfinished revolutions will likely await the resolution of the battle over the civil rights of American citizens who are also gay individuals or couples. And at stake is more than simply a license to marry. Like its predecessors, this epic battle is about again asserting the constitutional entitlement to equal dignity of all American citizens.

It's too easy to amend California's Constitution: The Proposition 8 battle showed that the process to get an initiative amendment on the state ballot

02/04/09 LA Times opinion article: Edward L. Lascher Jr. and Tim Hodson are political science professors at Sacramento State University. Floyd F. Feeney teaches election law at UC Davis School of Law. In this article, they say that because constitutions "outline basic, enduring principles, change and modification should be rare." California fails this standard for constitutional amendment. UC Davis law professors Viram Amar and Alan Brownstein have also faulted California's constitution for its "all-too-facile system of amendment."

State high court to hear Prop. 8 case March 5

02/03/09 SF Chronicle: "The state Supreme Court will hear arguments March 5 on the validity of Proposition 8 ... The court said today that it would hold a three-hour hearing, from 9 a.m. to noon, at its chambers in San Francisco. The proceedings will also be televised statewide on the California Channel, the court said. A ruling is due within 90 days of the hearing."

02/03/09 Cal Law Legal Pad: "

"When arguments begin at 9 a.m. on March 5, Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Gloria Allred, a partner in Los Angeles’ Allred Maroko & Goldberg; San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart; and the AG’s office, most likely represented by Sacramento-based Deputy AG Christopher Krueger, will have 30 minutes each to argue against Prop 8.

"Their opponents, represented by Pepperdine University School of Law dean Kenneth Starr, will get 60 minutes."

02/04/09 Sacramento Bee: "Public seating will be limited. To increase public access, the court will allow the California Channel, a public affairs cable network, to provide a live TV broadcast of the session."

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Conservative Christian Group Targets New York

02/03/09 New York Law Journal:

" New York courts are a relatively new battleground for the Alliance Defense Fund's national campaign against same-sex marriage.

"The group represented one of the petitioners in the case in which California's Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage and it defended the subsequent ballot Proposition 8, in which voters invalidated same-sex marriage, against legal challenges.

"The group also has been involved in same-sex marriage litigation in Rhode Island, Oklahoma and other states."

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. PROP8LEGALCOMMENTARY HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS PROP8LEGALCOMMENTARY ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

Same-sex insanity: A California Assembly bill takes the wrong path on its goal toward equal property tax benefits.

02/03/09 Los Angeles Times editorial: In this editorial, the LA Times opposes AB 103, by Assemblyman Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles). Under this legislation, any co-owners of a property who have lived in it for at least one year would qualify for the same property tax benefit of married couples. If extending a marriage benefit represents the object of the legislation, then LA Times editors believe it should be tailored to that purpose.

Forthcoming Nolo Press publication by Frederick Hertz and Emily Doskow: Making it Legal: Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnership & Civil Unions

Nolo Press has not yet announced release in August of this book by attorneys Frederick Hertz and Emily Doskow. Nolo Press currently offers A Legal Guide for Lesbian & Gay Couples.

The Unintended Tax Advantages of Gay Marriage

Theodore P. Seto, The Unintended Tax Advantages of Gay Marriage, 65 Washington and Lee Law Review 1529 (2008): "The Article concludes that the only way to ensure that gay couples will be
taxed no more favorably than heterosexual married couples is to list gay marriage as one of the proxy relationships that automatically invokes pertinent anti-abuse rules—in other words, to treat gay marriage as marriage for federal income tax purposes. In the absence of an attractive formal status that then invokes related-party anti-abuse rules, well-advised gay couples are, and will
continue to be, permitted to pay systematically lower federal income taxes than heterosexual married couples—a result unlikely to be acceptable to a majority of Americans in the long run."