Still Waiting For Substance in Prop 8 Trial

Following up from the earlier coverage of the Proposition 8 trial, Lisa Leff had more coverage today.

"I had been prejudiced," he said during a civil trial on the constitutionality of California's [marriage amendment]. "I was saying one group of people did not deserve the same respect, did not deserve the same symbolism of marriage, and I was saying their marriages were less important than those of heterosexuals."

He is speaking for himself. I am not prejudging anything. A brideless or groomless pairing isn't marriage, and shouldn't be licensed as such. The people have California have also expressed this twice. Furthermore, such pairings are less important to society than the kind of pairings that join together both sexes and create new citizens. That is not disparaging them or saying that they are wrong - it is stating a fact about the nature of such pairings.

This is not prejudice against homosexual people. I know a female-female couple that agrees there's no such thing as marriage without a groom, and as such, they did not seek a marriage license when they could have. Are they "prejudiced" and hateful towards lesbians?

Other testimony came from a University of Massachusetts at Amherst economist who said prohibiting same-sex marriages put gay couples at a financial disadvantage and would cost California $40 million over three years in tax revenue from weddings that could not take place.

We've already covered this in recent posts. People can, and do, have "weddings" without a state marriage license. But we could also increase our wedding revenue, by their theory, if we dropped bigamy restrictions.

"Marriage is an institution that is recognized by many other people outside the couple, so it has that social validation," Badgett said.

How can you have social validation when a majority of voters do not validate? Of course domestic partnerships are different than marriage. They are supposed to be.

Charles Cooper, another lawyer for Proposition 8 backers, countered that same number of couples registered as domestic partners in 2009 as 2008, even though same-sex marriage was legal in California during a four-month window before voters approved Proposition 8 in 2008.

"Do you believe these California same-sex couples chose domestic partnership over marriage because they felt these California domestic partnerships were second-rate?" Cooper asked Badgett.

There are plenty of both-sexes couples who don't want to attach the word marriage to their relationship. Most would not be able to get a domestic partnership, because the law discriminates.