Although advocates of same-sex marriage are indifferent toward State Senator Carole Migden's (D-San Francisco) bill to open up California's domestic partner registry to heterosexual couples, the improved legislation acknowledges new family arrangements in today's society and offers opposite sex couples more choices.
In fact, the state domestic partner registry should have included all couples – gay and straight – from the beginning; and Migden told us Tuesday that that was her original intention back in 1999 when, as a state assemblywoman, she authored AB26, which created the program. However, former Governor Gray Davis had requested that the registry be scaled back to include only same-sex couples and opposite sex couples over the age of 62 (some seniors don't want to get married to protect their benefits). Since then, of course, Migden and other lawmakers have passed legislation that has expanded the state registry, and now it includes all of the state benefits that married couples enjoy. Federal benefits, of which there are many, are not available.
Migden told us this week that she introduced SB11 because of changes in society. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly four in 10 U.S. babies were born outside of marriage in 2005, according to an article in Newsweek. And these are not teenage mothers, Migden noted, but older, professional women who want to have babies while they are able. Many are not single, but live as a family with their partners. Migden said that if those unmarried couples prefer registering as domestic partners to give their children access to health and other benefits, they should be provided that opportunity.
We agree.
This idea is in accord with what academics, activists, and others wrote this summer when they issued "Beyond Marriage," which argued that the LGBT community should not limit itself to fighting for marriage equality. We need to recognize other committed family forms, including domestic partnerships. After all, if the CDC study verifies anything, it's that families have changed.
Domestic partner registries in many California cities – including San Francisco and Berkeley – accept opposite sex couples to register. Expanding the state system would create a greater framework of rights and benefits.
What Migden is fighting for, she told us, is choice – for any couple. She continues to be committed to marriage equality – she and her partner wed at City Hall in 2004 and she has signed on as a co-author of Assemblyman Mark Leno's (D-San Francisco) new gender-neutral marriage bill, AB43. "It's a fact – not opinion – that American family units are changing," she told us. "My job is to respect families as they are. Freedom of choice is fundamental."
There's another important reason why Migden's bill should not be snubbed: the expected ballot initiative in 2008 by anti-gay social conservatives is expected to ban same-sex marriage and domestic partnerships. As we saw in Arizona, which had a similar amendment defeated last month, the campaign Arizona Together worked in collaboration with LGBT and straight allies, who stood to lose if that measure had passed. If the domestic partner registry in California is expanded, straight unmarried couples would have a powerful reason to stand with the LGBT community against the likely initiative.
It's too bad that groups advocating for marriage equality aren't more enthusiastic about Migden's bill and can't see the long-term benefits Like in the straight community, not everyone in the LGBT community wants to get married. It's not an either-or decision – no one, for instance, is advocating dismantling the registry should gays secure marriage rights.
It's just about choice.