Dear Governor Schwarzenegger –
When my same-sex domestic partner and I got Domestic Partnered, we had to reconstruct a sharing of our property like we would get automatically through marriage. We transferred our property into a joint trust, expecting Proposition 13 to keep our taxes frozen like it is supposed to do for families.
However, our county assessor saw things differently. Apparently because domestic partners are specially excluded from marriage, he believes they should also be specially excluded from the protections of Proposition 13. He quadrupled our property taxes.
I read today that this case has finally wound its way through the courts, and same-sex couples ARE protected by Proposition 13.
This is good news for us – we can start the paperwork today to get back some of the extra money we had to pay in taxes – but I really wish we didn’t have to take every little thing such as this to court when we could simply access the time-tested stability of marriage.
You could cut out a lot of waste in government and help families like mine reach our full potential if you would only support free choice in marriage. Please tell Californians that everybody deserves the freedom to marry.
Yours,