OK, this is not a Vietnamese-American issue, but the Bolsavik would like to briefly mention it here in honor of one of his best friends, a Vietnamese-American district attorney in the Bay Area, who once stood in line in San Francisco to be “married” to his gay partner. That “marriage” was subsequently annulled by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1055 (PDF here).
That case was decided on the narrow grounds of whether San Francisco officials had the authority to issue the marriage certificates to gay couples.
They can now try again under the court’s new ruling, In re Marriage Cases, PDF here, Word doc here. Quote:
[U]pon review of the numerous California decisions that have examined the underlying bases and significance of the constitutional right to marry (and that illuminate why this right has been recognized as one of the basic, inalienable civil rights guaranteed to an individual by the California Constitution), we conclude that, under this state’s Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process. These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage.
….
[W]e conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.
