Alex Randolph, He's So Hot Right Now

The Bay Area Reporter is a strong voice for the Gay community of San Francisco and the BAR seems to have a little crush on Cal alumnus, Alex Randolph. Most recently, they have included Randolph in a profile of Black, Gay politicians in San Francisco.

After Alex graduated from Berkeley, he served as Campaign Manager for another Cal alum, SF Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the Castro. Randolph seems to have quickly morphed into Dufty's new protege.

After securing Dufty's reelection, Randolph picked up a post in the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services and covers much of the action in the Castro. He has also become active in SF's LGBT Democratic club.

According to the BAR, Randolph has indicated that he has not ruled out a possible run to replace Bevan Dufty when he terms out in 2011.

"It is a possibility, but I haven't given it any strong thought yet," he said. "When the time comes, I might, but not right now."

A Post About Gavin Newsom (But Not His Affair)

While California is still reeling over Mayor Gavin Newsom's latest romance, I want to focus on what made Mayor McDreamy the political star that he is today. Hint: it wasn't his looks or money.

On February 12, it will have been three years since Mayor Newsom declared same-sex marriage legal in California. While he did not have the authority to interpret state law (that role is reserved for the courts) he did force California to consider the issue with urgency. On that fateful day in 2003, Newsom's protest shook California like an earthquake and initiated a series of lawsuits now pending in the California Supreme Court to determine whether Gays and Lesbians have the legal right to marry.

I have already written about my personal views on Gay Marriage (as a refresher: I support Gay Marriage but think there are more important and urgent Gay rights issues that must be addressed immediately). Still, I applaud efforts in California to show heterosexual people the inequality faced by Gay men and women.

The Yolo County Clerk-Recorder, Freddie Oakley, was featured in the Sacramento Bee today because she is doing just that-making more apparent the inequality faced by Gay couples in this state.

Ms. Oakley is statutorily unable to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, so she has developed a certificate of inequality to grant instead. Obviously, Gay people already know that we are treated unequally under state laws, but these certificates have continued to draw attention to the disparity. Although Governor Schwarzenegger has signed legislation that grants every state-provided benefit and responsibility of marriage to domestic partners, Domestic Partnerships are still unequal to Marriage in both name and federal benefits.

In short, I applaud the efforts of both Newsom and Oakley for keeping Gay rights on the forefront of California politics.

Let Diana Ross Decide!

Ok, so the news is old now. As Kevin Norte so eloquently put it, (to paraphrase) the Supremes have unanimously decided to hear the Gay Marriage case in California.

While it might be interesting to have a Diana Ross-led court determining the outcome of Gay marriage in our state, the California Supreme Court will soon hear the case and make the ultimate determination as to whether the Knight Amendment can stand in California.

To give a recap, after Massachusetts courts declared anti-Gay marriage laws unconstitutional, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began to offer marriage licenses in California. Immediately afterward, the state of California refused to recognize these marriages as valid because they were believed to be void under the state constitution. The courts disagreed. However, before the decision went into effect, the appellate court took up the case and reversed the ruling of the lower court, in part, because Gay people are not discriminated against because Gay men can enter into marriages with women and Lesbians can enter into marriages with men just as heterosexual people can. Now the Supreme Court will be reviewing the case.

This is great news for Gay and Lesbian Californians! I continue to believe that it is of greater importance to ensure more basic rights than marriage for Gays in places outside of California than it is to achieve full marriage equality in California. But since this ball is already rolling, there is no reason to stop it. Gay men and women across the state will hopefully soon be granted full marriage equality!

Straight People Partnerships

The tiny but formidable Senator Carole Migden has hit the headlines again with her latest bill, SB 11. This bill would expand California’s Domestic Partnership Program to allow opposite-sex couples to register for domestic Partnerships.

Under existing law, heterosexual couples are ineligible to register for domestic partnerships unless at least one partner is over the age of 62. Seniors are allowed to register for domestic partnerships in lieu of marriage because they may want to avoid marriage in order to protect their benefits. Gay couples are totally ineligible for marriage in California but may instead obtain a domestic partnership which now affords all the rights and responsibilities that the state provides to married couples.

Still, domestic partnerships are considered differently under both state and federal law. Federal law does not recognize domestic partnerships at all and provides none of the benefits of marriage to such couples. State law allows for a much easier, faster, and often less expensive dissolution of a domestic partnership as compared to marriage.

The California courts have been reviewing Gay marriage laws in California since Mayor Gavin Newsom began to allow such unions in San Francisco two years ago. Most recently, the California appellate court ruled that California laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are non-discriminatory in part because Gay people may marry in heterosexual unions and because even if they choose to couple with those of the same sex, California provides all of the benefits of marriage in an equal institution (domestic partnerships).

Migden’s stated motivation for SB 11 has been to provide a marriage alternative to heterosexual couples. Many unwed mothers in this state currently cohabitate in a family unit with a father. Domestic partnerships would provide a more stable environment for the rearing of children, would allow both adults to share in employment benefits, offer each the ability to make critical medical decisions when the other is incapacitated, among other benefits. These changes could be extremely beneficial to nontraditional family units.

However, Migden could very well have another motive: a demonstration that marriage and domestic partnerships are separate and unequal institutions. Clearly there must be a difference if a number of people given a choice would predictably choose to engage in one form of partnership instead of the other. Further, it would increase the disparity by allowing straight people to choose between marriage and domestic partnerships but still only allow Gay people to obtain domestic partnerships. Already, the Christian conservative right in California have cried out claiming that this expansion of domestic partnerships is an all-out assault on traditional marriage.

This demonstration that marriage and domestic partnerships are inherently different institutions and that gay people are only allowed to obtain domestic partnerships while heterosexual people are able to choose between the two might spur the California Supreme Court to recognize the difference between the two when they take up the issue next year.