The Manhattan Project
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Sculpture Garden Ice-Skating Rink Remains Closed
The D.C. Council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary may have just spent two long days hearing public testimony on the same-sex marriage bill for no good reason. A draft report coming out of the committee and currently being circulated to the rest of the council argues that marriage equality already exists in the city, and a law legalizing it isn't much more than a formality.
"In recognizing same-sex marriage in the District, Bill 18-482 does not redefine any concept in the law (indeed, the Committee maintains same-sex marriage is already permitted under District law), as nowhere in our Code is the institution of marriage reserved to opposite-sex couples," reads the report. "Rather, Bill 18-482 removes the custom, or practice, that marriage is only between a man and a woman. This simple legislative act puts in the law what is already in the law: that the right of marriage applies fully to all in the District."
In a process described as "prolonged and incremental," the draft report cites a number of laws and initiatives dating back to 1992 that replaced gender-specific language in the D.C. Code and established domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. It also states that the factors relied upon by the D.C. Superior Court in 1995 ruling prohibiting same-sex marriage in the city have been "methodically, and purposefully, reversed by the Council or have become obsolete through societal and cultural changes." In short, same-sex couples in the District currently enjoy all the legal rights of marriage, and the legislation currently before the D.C. Council will merely establish that fact as law and custom.
For as big a fight as same-sex marriage has been in other parts of the country, the District's approach to legalizing it seems methodical and anticlimactic to an extreme. The symbolism of it of course matters, but the committee appears to have decided that the right of same-sex couples to marry in D.C. already exists -- it just hasn't ever been referred to as "marriage."
The bill is expected to be marked up on Tuesday, with a full council vote planned for December 1.
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So teh gheys have been able to get married in DC for a long time now, but they just didn't know it?
Seriously, that's how this reads. Is that true?
hey, if that's the case, then wow, guess that blows a hole in harry jackson's thesis about how this law would destroy DC families.
i suspect they mean that civil unions in the district are essentially the same as state-only marriage.
I read the whole draft report a few times, and it seemed to say that same-sex marriage is already legal -- it's just not called "marriage."
This is another section from the report that makes the point: "Bill 18-482 amends Chapter 4 of Title 46 to clarify that marriage is the legally recognized union of two persons in the District of Columbia, and that this cannot be denied because of gender or sexual orientation. Although currently not prohibited by District law, the provisions of this legislation affirmatively provide for same-sex couples to marry in the District."
I take it to mean that the Council has been slowing chipping away at anything that would prevent same sex marriage from being legal. With those barriers out of the way, they can enact it without any problems. The way is clear now, and all we need is a little legislation to expressly state that same-sex marriage is legal to get things moving.
It's like the Council has made sure that the brakes are off, but the car is not going anywhere until someone gives it a green light and hits the gas. 18-842 is David Catania (and Council) stomping on the accelerator and flooring that mother-f@#%er.