TIME TO STUDY STATE INTEREST IN MARRIAGE
I would like to add my own two cents on the decision in the marriage cases ["Court OK's gay marriage ban," Oct. 6]. Whether the standard of scrutiny is “strict” or “heightened” when it comes to same-sex marriage, we must first identify the state interest permitting regulation of these relationships.
In California, at least, the rights and obligations are not aimed at procreation. Rather, they promote the undertaking of a joint venture for mutual support.
It is this promotion of a relationship of mutual support between individuals that is the state interest, for if there is any truth in the statement that “two can live as cheaply as one” then it follows that California’s treasury benefits if two (or more) people agree to be the first line of support for each other.
Anyone who took wills and estates in law school will recall the cases in which persons undertook caregiving relationships with a future expectation of inheritance, only to find they had been left nothing for one reason or another and in the absence of marriage such persons either took nothing or had to sue for reimbursement of the value of their services. It is to structure the benefits and burdens of these mutual support relationships that California has its marriage laws and their opposite-sex character is owed to then cultural myopia that viewed women as caregivers for men.
It is time to rationalize to whom California law extends the benefits and burdens of the marital community, basing it not on genitalia, but strength of commitment. If it helps the religiously-blinkered among us, then California should relinquish “marriage” and “holy matrimony” unto the religions and extend “domestic partners” to all persons under California law.
Tahir J. Naim
Sunnyvale
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