College dudes take aim at 'marriage' in ballot initiative

[mina.magpie]

College dudes take aim at 'marriage' in ballot initiative (Mercury News)

Ali Shams, a senior at the University of California-San Diego, was watching a soccer game with a bunch of buddies when his phone started ringing Tuesday, and refused to stop.

Surprising even the 22-year-old pre-law student, his personal project during Christmas break — framing a constitutional amendment initiative to replace the word "marriage" with "domestic partnership" under state law — was cleared by Secretary of State Debra Bowen to gather petition signatures for a potential statewide ballot.

Mina.

[placeholdername]

The link isn't working for me.

[mina.magpie]

I tested it. It's working for me - is it perhaps that you're behind a firewall somewhere?

I've quoted the bulk of the article below. Hopefully that's okay:

By Mike Swift

Mercury News
Posted: 03/11/2009 06:25:00 PM PDT

Ali Shams, a senior at the University of California-San Diego, was watching a soccer game with a bunch of buddies when his phone started ringing Tuesday, and refused to stop.

Surprising even the 22-year-old pre-law student, his personal project during Christmas break — framing a constitutional amendment initiative to replace the word "marriage" with "domestic partnership" under state law — was cleared by Secretary of State Debra Bowen to gather petition signatures for a potential statewide ballot.

Fox News, NBC, The Associated Press and many of the state's largest newspapers were on the phone wanting to discuss the unusual initiative launched by Shams and his friend Kaelan Housewright, a 21-year-old senior at the California Institute of the Arts. More to the point was Queerty.com, a gay issues blog which marveled: "Straight Dudes File California Gay Marriage Ballot Initiative."

The measure would overturn Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage, and have California treat all unions — opposite-sex or same-sex — as domestic partnerships. It would also allow churches, synagogues and mosques to decide whom they want to marry in a social, rather than civil, ceremony.

The domestic partnership initiative might be an extreme long shot to pass — or even make it to the ballot. In what may be a first, the warring sides in the Proposition 8 campaign agree on something — they both
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hate the idea.

However, Shams believes he is going to accomplish something important by getting people to talk about his proposal, even if it doesn't pass.

Facebook tactic

Shams and Housewright are relying on Facebook — their "Domestic Partner Initiative" page features a fist labeled "Equality" and photos of the proponents in party mode — to gather the required signatures of 694,354 registered voters by Aug. 6. (That's about 4,600 signatures a day.)

They hoped to have a campaign Web site up Wednesday — Housewright's dad is their Web guru — but the link from Facebook wasn't operational as of Wednesday afternoon.

Their proposal might sound startling. But California's Supreme Court justices, in oral arguments on same-sex marriage last week and in 2008, discussed the idea of equal protection for opposite-sex and same-sex couples by eliminating the state from civil marriage, leaving the decision of who can marry to religious organizations.

"We're not banning marriage. We're protecting fundamental rights for minorities and protecting the religious definition of marriage for" religious groups, Shams said.

While Shams said he and Housewright are not gay, Shams was deeply affected when he saw a gay friend devastated by Proposition 8's passage.

"I did not enjoy the feeling that she has to feel this way because certain people, who don't even know her, feel she doesn't deserve certain rights," Shams said.

Growing up in an Iranian family in Denmark, Shams said he's felt the sting of racial discrimination.

In California, "the majority is abusing or collectively bullying the minority," he said. "I'm trying to do what I wish somebody would have done for me when I was a racialized minority."

Give 'em props

But following a bare-knuckle, $83 million political campaign where the two sides said that marriage was a bedrock of society but vehemently disagreed about who should have access to it, few Californians may embrace Sham's way of thinking.

"We wouldn't want to see anyone stripped of the dignity and respect that comes with marriage," said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, which worked to defeat Proposition 8.

"We've just gone through a gut-wrenching campaign, with both sides talking about the importance of marriage," said Frank Schubert, who ran the Yes on 8 campaign. "And now the message seems to be, 'Never mind, marriage isn't that important.' "

Still, as a veteran political operative, Schubert gave Shams and Housewright props.

"I have to give these kids credit," he said. For the $200 fee of filing with the state, "they've had more publicity than they could ever have possibly imagined."

Mina.

[imaz]

"Their proposal might sound startling. But California's Supreme Court justices, in oral arguments on same-sex marriage last week and in 2008, discussed the idea of equal protection for opposite-sex and same-sex couples by eliminating the state from civil marriage, leaving the decision of who can marry to religious organizations."

Utter madness!

If that lot got to decide who would they ever let get married?

It would get like Israel where it is not only not impossible to marry across faiths but also across different types of Judaism.

Indonesia is pretty bad as well, the only way to marry across faiths is by going abroad to do it. Ridiculous really when the Qur'an itself permits marriage between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

[mina.magpie]

I actually think it's a good idea. Basically it's proposing that the legal and financial privileges associated with marriage/hand-fasting/civil-union/whatever be separated from what is essentially a religious ritual, which absolutely makes sense in the context of separation of church and state.

The whole point would be that legal and financial recognition of the relationship would depend on a secular "civil unions", while "marriage" would then be simply one of a number of different religious recognitions of the same. Everybody would have the same rights, be it a same-sex couple, a Wiccan couple handfasted in a pagan ceremony, etc. while churches would retain their freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

It seems to me the only really workable solution. Existing marriages can be retroactively recognised as civil unions, while churches would be free to recognise and not recognise as is their right.

Mina.

[imaz]

I fully agree concerning civil unions that there should be zero inequalities.

What bothers me is who decides in regards to religious marriages. Many of us here who happen to be believers would find our marriage annulled by a bunch of nutters. Iranians would accept me legally as woman but then accuse me of homosexuality. Saudis would not accept me and probably consider me either Gay or guilty of messing with Allah's creations. No win situation.

Wasn't it that religious maniac Tony Blair (him of God "told me" to invade Iraq fame) who when forced by the European Union to accept the rights of Transexuals immediately enacted legislation that SRS would invalidate an existing marriage?

Personally I believe all couples should have the right to a religious marriage whatever their gender or sexuality.
Last year I had the pleasure of attending three weddings between Muslims, one religious ceremony between a lesbian couple, one civil partnership, and lastly my own which was both religious and civil.

[tekla]

Mina is right in that what is being proposed - among other things - is the basic elimination of 'marriage' from civil law.  You can do it, but like going to Disneyland, it doesn't matter.  You get nothing special from it - other than the wedding gifts and the eventual divorce.

In Cali most people due to the law, or not, are living in sin anyway. 

And don't all churches choose who can, and who can not, get married in the church, and how they are to go about it.  I can't go book a local Catholic Church just because I think it would make for a nice backdrop for the wedding photos, I like have to be a Catholic and be marrying one too I think.

[Ender]

I can't go book a local Catholic Church just because I think it would make for a nice backdrop for the wedding photos, I like have to be a Catholic and be marrying one too I think.

It's up to the discretion of the priest.  From what I understand, at least one partner has to be a baptized & confirmed Catholic.  My grandparents (a Catholic and a Lutheran) got married in a Catholic church.  The priest made them vow to raise their kids in the Catholic tradition.  I have heard of cases where the non-Catholic partner had to take a crash-course in Catechism or had to be baptized into the Catholic faith before the priest would perform the marriage.  Some priests want the married couple (if they aren't regulars or go to a different church) to attend their church for a certain period of time prior to the marriage--this was the case with my parents.  Catholics, at least the ones I grew up around, are pretty hardcore about their faith being the only legitimate one--Christian or otherwise.

[tekla]

Yeah, in fact its up to the diocese or the order which runs the Church, but at some point, someone is going to have to be Catholic at some point.

[mina.magpie]

I fully agree concerning civil unions that there should be zero inequalities.

What bothers me is who decides in regards to religious marriages. Many of us here who happen to be believers would find our marriage annulled by a bunch of nutters. Iranians would accept me legally as woman but then accuse me of homosexuality. Saudis would not accept me and probably consider me either Gay or guilty of messing with Allah's creations. No win situation.

Wasn't it that religious maniac Tony Blair (him of God "told me" to invade Iraq fame) who when forced by the European Union to accept the rights of Transexuals immediately enacted legislation that SRS would invalidate an existing marriage?

Personally I believe all couples should have the right to a religious marriage whatever their gender or sexuality.
Last year I had the pleasure of attending three weddings between Muslims, one religious ceremony between a lesbian couple, one civil partnership, and lastly my own which was both religious and civil.

As much as I agree with you in principle, I can't agree with you in fact because by forcing a church to marry two individuals against their doctrines and against the will of its followers, you are violating freedoms of association, speech, religion and probably a host of other things. I might think they are all bigoted a®$eholes for believing what they do, but that doesn't give me the right to force them to do otherwise.

Realistically though I don't see it as such a huge issue. If you are a follower of a particular religion or denomination, in theory at least you live by the teachings of that group. Catholics for example live by the word of the Pope about transgender people being worse than climate change, and members who don't agree with that tend to join another denomination that does. You might not be able to be married in a Catholic ceremony, but you'd still be able to get married in a Unitarian one, for example. The contract though, the one that orders a civil union, being a binding, legally protected contract between two individuals, that would have to be respected by everybody.

Mina.

[imaz]

Sure, fully agree

What I meant was that there should be a right to marry not that some staunch Catholic priest should be forced to do so but that there should be a possibility in some way.

For eample even though I personally got married last time with two Imam's and a Qur'an reciter none of that is strictly necessary to the best of my knowledge. It's technically possible for any Imam or indeed any knowledgeable Muslim to conduct a wedding ceremony (Nikah) and even to draw up the wedding document/contact (Nikah Nama).

[whatsername]

I'm all for this.  Marriage is a spiritual union anyway, the state should have it's own set up.