Yay California!

[redbird]

The California Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry under the state constitution. 4-3, but that's good enough (one of the dissenters basically said she's in favor of marriage equality but doesn't think the state constitution guarantees it).

Also points to the BBC, for the headline "California lifts gay marriage ban," with the pleasant suggestion that allowing same-sex marriage is not only the right thing to do, but the normal thing, with the rule against it having been the anomaly. (The UK offers same-sex civil partnerships, not called marriage, but I'm not sure precisely what the differences are.)

My mixed-sex marriage is in no danger from this ruling, of course: my beloved cattitude and I are staying together because we want to, not in order to distinguish our heterosexual relationship from homosexual ones.

[That makes two US states that will perform same-sex marriages, I think three that have "civil unions," and at least one (New York) that does not perform same-sex marriages but recognizes such marriages legally entered into elsewhere, including outside the U.S.]

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

The Royal Family were not included in the provisions for register office weddings. And they have to be C of E, so in practice their only option was to marry in C of E churches....

...so, when Charles wanted to marry Camilla, he couldn't marry in a register office, but he couldn't marry in church, because she was divorced so the church wouldn't marry them. So the Lord Chancellor argued that that piece of law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (specifically the right to marry and the right to family life) and the Registrar General agreed. Report here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4329005.stm).

In practice, I think that approach, and decision, would also apply if a member of the Royal Family wanted to enter into a civil partnership; I think these days, they would be allowed to, and almost nobody would turn a hair. If that member of the Royal Family were the heir to the throne, though? Perhaps not.

[redbird]

I suspect that if the heir to the throne wanted a civil partnership, some people would worry, aloud, about who would inherit after him/her. Even if there were siblings, cousins, et cetera: it's not as though there's a shortage of Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover. (This speculation assumes a relatively young, childless heir, not someone in Charles's situation.)