Good News! California Upholds Property Rights for Domestic Partners
Despite the continuing need for GLBT folks to be able to marry in order to secure full rights, little by little courts appear to be making decisions that guarantee various rights guaranteed to married people onto GLBT couples and domestic partners. Today’s good news comes from California, where the California Supreme Court has “rejected a bid to overturn a law protecting domestic partners from increased property taxes when one of the partners dies and the other inherits the couple’s home.” According to 365gay.com,
In 2003 the state tax board issued a ruling that domestic partners would be treated in the same way as married couples in property inheritance. The legislature put the rule into law in 2005.
The measure was meant to insure that a surviving partner would not lose a home due to higher single person taxes.
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Last October the California Court of Appeal upheld the law and dismissed the suit saying that the Legislature has the power to “define the scope of ‘change of ownership’ and to create exclusions from the general definition for nonarbitrary, rational policy reasons.”
The three-judge panel said the the Legislature adopted the exclusion for domestic partners to “guarantee equality for all Californians, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.”
My favorite part of the decision is that the court explicitly affirmed the idea that laws are needed to guarantee equality, and that sometimes exceptions to general laws are needed in the absence of better, broader (read: marriage laws).
Obviously, it’s not enough on it’s own, but I figure that it’s good to highlight the good steps that happen as well as pointing out the ways in which our society is still failing GLBT communities. Hope can be a powerful rallying force.
GLBT, marriage, property rights, California, California Supreme Court
GLBT, marriage, property rights, California, California Supreme Court
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