Same-sex partnership won’t end alimony

LOS ANGELES – A judge has ordered a man to continue paying alimony to his ex-wife – even though she’s in a registered domestic partnership with another woman and uses the other woman’s last name.

California marriage laws say alimony ends when a former spouse remarries, and Ron Garber thought that meant he was off the hook when he learned his ex-wife had registered her new relationship under the state’s domestic partnership law.

An Orange County judge didn’t see it that way.

The judge ruled that a registered partnership is cohabitation, not marriage, and that Garber must keep writing the checks, $1,250 a month, to his ex-wife, Melinda Kirkwood. Garber plans to appeal.

The case highlights questions about the legal status of domestic partnerships, an issue the California Supreme Court is weighing as it considers whether same-sex marriage is legal. An appeals court upheld the state’s ban on same-sex marriage last year, citing the state’s domestic partners law and ruling that it was up to the Legislature to decide whether gays could wed.

Lawyers arguing in favor of same-sex marriage say they will cite the June ruling in the Orange County case as a reason to unite gay and heterosexual couples under one system: marriage.

In legal briefs due in August to the California Supreme Court, Therese Stewart, chief deputy city attorney for San Francisco, intends to argue that same-sex couples should have access to marriage and that domestic partnership doesn’t provide the same reverence and respect as marriage.

The alimony ruling shows “the irrationality of having a separate, unequal scheme” for same-sex partners, Stewart said.