As the Journal World explains:
Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison said in the legal opinion that the proposed registry does not conflict with the Kansas Constitution, which bans same-sex marriage. The opinion, though, does say that the registry would need to be open only to Lawrence residents, or else the city could be found to be overstepping its constitutional authority.
That isn't quite right. The opinion (PDF link) is clear that there is no conflict with the marriage amendment. The only scenario the AG's office can imagine in which a court might strike down the registry is if a different municipality argued that allowing its citizens to register in Lawrence's registry somehow deprives that municipality of the right not to acknowledge those relationships.
That seems odd, since the whole point is that this grants no rights beyond what private employers choose to grant. No law could forbid an employer in Topeka from reviewing the Lawrence registry, and it's hard to see how Topeka would be harmed by having private employers grant insurance benefits on the basis of a Lawrence registry.
Given the stated purpose of the registry to attract businesses and their employees, the City Commission may want to restrict registration to residents or employees of companies within city limits. Restricting it only to residents seems like it would just complicate things. The suggestion that Lawrence would be treading on other cities' ability to regulate their own behavior seems silly. Other municipalities are not obliged to acknowledge Lawrence's registry, or may choose to provide their own registries with different conditions. They have lost no rights through this action on the part of Lawrence, so I fail to see how this has any meaningful extraterritorial effect.
Given that new Commission members Dever and Chestnut both said they'd wait for the AG's opinion before making up their minds, it's likely that the registry will be created, possibly with a residency requirement.
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I suppose that something is better than nothing, especially in the heartland, but these sops, like don't-ask-don't-tell, are so lame.
For a Kansas AG, this is amazingly daring. Combined with Morrison's refusal to kowtow to Kansans for Life and Operation Rescue, this action should send a clear message to the Religious Right that this AG is not *their* AG, as Kline was.
Given that Lawrence was the only part of the state to reject the recent ban on gay marriage, these sorts of baby steps are important, and are all that is practical.
The opinion (linked above) quotes Kris Kobach, now the head of the Kansas GOP, testifying to the legislature that the amendment would and should allow exactly this sort of thing, so it'll be hard for Republicans to claim that they meant to ban domestic partnership. That won't stop them from trying, I'm sure.
I knew a couple that decided not to get married. They both had word which gave them benefits. They owned two houses. They didn't need to be married for life insurance benefits. So, one supposes that the main thing would be health benefits. They had a yearly "non-anniversary".
Another couple decided to get married. But one of the two was Catholic, had a prior divorce, and the church would not marry them. They decided to go to the Justice of the Peace - which they claimed was the least important recognition of their marriage. The most important would be recognition from the spouse.