forgive me. i just watched 40 elderly women dance the macarena and jam to shakira at an assisted living facility while conducting a deposition. i suppose the reason why the volume was turned up so high was because they were all hard of hearing, but the driving bass and the occasional "woop! woop!" made the deposition really difficult to take.
anyway, since i'm so exhausted, i don't know if i read this correctly. virginia has a law that prevents two adults of the same sex from entering into binding "partnership contracts" that might seem to bestow the "privileges and obligations" of marriage? what exactly are these "privileges and obligations" anyway?
"i'll mow the lawn if you do the dishes from now on." - uh oh. looks invalid.
"if you promise to shut up, i promise to stop yelling." - yikes! invalid.
"give me the remote control, and i will stop whining like a little girl." - looks shady to me!
hey, state of virginia, i'd like some annotations to that statute, because i'm having a problem comprehending exactly what you mean by that vague language. so let's say you - a heterosexual in this hypothetical - and a heterosexual buddy - not a lover, just a buddy - decide to purchase a house, because, you know, single people are priced out of the real estate market. and you don't want your buddy's rotten harpy of a mother to descend upon the property if your buddy dies, so you buy it as "joint tenants with right of survivorship." will virginia put on its gay-sniffer and make that contract invalid, because it might think that you and your heterosexual buddy are porking each other?
what a stupid law.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
excuse me, but did i read that correctly?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Reason #43251 that I've escaped to Massachussets. MY STATE IS ON CRACK. (Technically, I guess it's tobacco...)
This referendum is just a dirty trick to bring out more Republican voters. The good news is that it's the first measure on the ballot, so there's a slight chance that people might read past the first sentence. The bad news is that it's still Virginia.
The Commonwealth Coalition is the main group working to keep the ammendment from passing. It's worth checking out.
ben, to quote my favorite young attorney, dianna abdala: "bla bla bla."
this is a personal blog where i have photoshopped a basketball on tony blair's finger and opined about penguins who just want to get some sun in rio. if you want real legal analysis, read volokh. if you want general absurdity 80% of the time and somewhat-truths the rest of the time, read my posts.
kthxbi!!! lololol
wait - hold on. i wasn't talking about the constitutional amendment prohibiting same sex marriage or any marriage-like status between same sex couples bestowed upon them by the state.
i was talking about the law that banned "partnership contracts," which i assume are private contracts between two people (without the state becoming involved in terms of bestowing any sort of state-mandated rights). can the state come in and declare a contract void between two unrelated-by-blood (or adoption) same sex people who want to give the other a health care proxy, the main beneficiary of a will or trust, etc.? (i don't think so!) but at what point does a partnership contract gain or lose marriage-like qualities?
i only read the article briefly, but that was how the law appeared to be worded.
that was what i was lampooning.
again, i don't actually read these laws or cases; i only make silly comments. my law brain is only on when i am billing.
here is the section i was taking about:
Virginia state legislators passed a law two years ago that prohibits "civil unions, partnership contracts or other arrangements between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." A proposed constitutional amendment, which will go to voters in November, excludes any "unmarried individuals" from "union, partnership or other legal status similar to marriage."
see the first part? that law looks like it regulates private contracts (it prevents two people from entering into certain types of contracts), whereas the constitutional amendment prevents the state from bestowing any automatic marriage-like legal status to unmarried couples.
Post a Comment