ShareThisAt California's historic hearing on Proposition 8 earlier this month, Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin briefly imagined a scenario that might solve the legal conflict over a gay marriage ban.
What if the government were to get out of the "marriage business," Ming asked, and issue civil-union licenses to both straight and gay couples?
The justices agreed such a change would have to be handled by the legislature, and discussion closed.
But outside the court, the question still hung in the air.
On March 10, five days after the court hearing, two California college students got the OK from state election officials to try to put Ming's question before voters.
The students are circulating petitions for a ballot initiative that would strike the word "marriage" from state laws and substitute "domestic partnership."
The change would keep all the rights of marriage now on the books. But it would nullify Proposition 8 and make the new partnership category applicable to both gay and straight.
"We want to take marriage out of the battlefield," said Ali Shams, a University of California, San Diego, student who co-authored the language.
Many people say their religion tells them marriage is between a man and a woman, Shams said. But many also believe gay people have a right to equal treatment.
Shams said he has no problem with gay marriage, but believes voters lean more toward accepting union by a different name for gays.
For some gay couples, however, the word marriage is worth fighting for.
Fred Palmer, 44, publishes Outword magazine, a Sacramento-based gay news publication, and David Rupel is a prize-winning TV show writer.
For them, equality means having all the rights and obligations, state and federal, that a married heterosexual couple has.
But neither gay marriage nor domestic partnership are recognized under federal law, so gay Americans do not have a multitude of federal rights.
They can't inherit a deceased partner's Social Security benefits or sponsor a foreign spouse to immigrate. And if one partner has health insurance through the other, they have to count that as income and pay tax on it.
Marriage in California didn't change that, Palmer and Rupel said, but it was a start. They wed last fall -- a day before Proposition 8 passed.
"I've asked people who say marriage is based on religion why it's OK for atheists to get married," said Rupel, 45. "They never have an answer for that."
Patrick Hanson, a retail store employee in Rancho Cordova, and Stuart Rice, a vocational college educator, also are passionate about equal rights for gay couples.
But if it would defuse religious opposition and hasten equal legal rights, Hanson said, he would gladly give up the word "marriage" and accept getting married under the label of same-sex civil union.
"They don't want us to get married under their God," Hanson, 36, said. "That's fine. But I want the same rights."
Hanson said, though, that he doesn't think Shams' proposal to have everyone get hitched in civil union will attract much of a following.
"That would be too much, like asking heterosexuals to change for us," he said.
E-mail Susan Ferriss at sferriss(at)sacbee.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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