Drew Snyder and
William Ballentine had a commitment ceremony with all the
trimmings four years ago, the closest they could get to a
wedding at the time.
Now that
California's highest court has held that two men may be
legally married starting later this month, friends
want to know when the Los Angeles couple plan to take
their relationship to the next level.
The answer: Not
any time soon.
The problem is a
citizen referendum on the November ballot that would
overturn the state supreme court's landmark decision that
denying gay couples the right to wed was
discriminatory. It means same-sex couples face the
uncertainty of whether they would still be legally wed if
the ballot measure were to pass.
No thanks, say
Ballentine and Snyder. Better to wait until after the
election, when they will know whether voters have allowed
gay marriages to go ahead.
''If they were to
say no and we hadn't gotten married, we could live with
that,'' said Ballentine, a 31-year-old mortgage banker. ''If
we did get married and that happened, it would add
insult to injury.''
''Why go through
it all and have that disappointment?'' agreed Snyder,
37, a real estate agent.
The ballot
initiative, known as the California Marriage Protection Act,
would amend the state constitution to ''provide that only
marriage between a man and a woman is valid or
recognized in California.'' Its language was taken
directly from a gay marriage ban enacted by voters in
2000, one of two the supreme court majority found
unconstitutional and struck down in its May 15
decision.
The phrase
''valid or recognized'' is what worries some same-sex
marriage supporters. The question is how, if the
amendment passes, the state would treat marriage
licenses issued between June 16 -- when the high court's
ruling takes effect at 5 p.m. -- and Election Day.
Shannon Minter,
who successfully argued the case as legal director of the
National Center for Lesbian Rights, said licenses that
thousands of same-sex couples are expected to seek
during the five-month window would not be rendered
void automatically.
Rather, it would
be up to the measure's sponsors or another party to seek
to have them nullified through additional litigation,
according to Minter. He doubts the courts would go for
it.
''There is no
precedent for taking away someone's married status
retroactively. It just has never been done before, and the
practical consequences would be unimaginably
devastating,'' Minter said.
Nevertheless, it
could take years of legal wrangling before couples know
their unions are secure.
Glen Lavy, senior
counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian
legal firm that argued for upholding California's one
man-one woman marriage laws, said that if his
firm didn't try to have the initiative apply to
existing marriages, it's only a matter of time before
someone else did.
''It is
inevitable that when the marriage amendment passes in
November there will be a cloud on the validity of any
same-sex marriage license that is issued,'' he said.
Such gloomy
forecasts have Karen Bowen, 48, and Beth Gerstein, 47,
mothers of two who live in Berkeley, thinking long and hard
about getting married. They have been together nearly
20 years and were among the 4,000 who joyfully wed at
San Francisco City Hall in early 2004 after Mayor
Gavin Newsom decided to challenge state law by extending
marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
''It seemed
really clear to us it was a political statement. It wasn't
going to last,'' said Bowen.
Six months later,
when the supreme court voided all the unions sanctioned
by the city, ''it was still very painful,'' she added. ''It
will be even worse were we to have these dashed hopes,
to get married without it really counting.''
Gerstein and
Bowen do intend to tie the knot some time before November.
''I want for our
kids to know we are part of a movement that I think of
as historic,'' Gerstein said. ''Even if it doesn't work out,
I'll get married as many times as it takes because we
should be able to get married.''
Douglas Kmiec, a
Pepperdine University constitutional law professor who
filed a brief urging the supreme court to reserve marriage
for a man and a woman, agrees that what will become of
the same-sex marriages sanctioned in the coming months
''is open to debate'' if the amendment passes.
Kmiec predicts
the outcome eventually will be decided in favor of gay
couples by the supreme court. Just this past week, the court
refused to grant a request to delay the issuance of
marriage licenses.
''If they were
concerned about the validity of those public acts, they
would have been more inclined to put matters on hold,''
Kmiec said. ''They fully realize people are going to
be relying on these public licenses, changing their
plans and planning their futures in relation to this
authority.'' (Lisa Leff, AP)
