Lisa and I were married (the first time) in Japan, where marriage is a very different legal institution. In Japan, a trip to City Hall isn't for the purpose of asking someone to legitimize your marriage. It is simply to record it, in the same way we go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to register our cars, not to ask the government to let us own them. (That's why no one ever says, "I now pronounce you man and car.' ")

The wedding ceremony in Japan is just that — ceremonial. In our case, a Buddhist priest in a nearby mountain temple heard that we had decided to elope and asked if we would accept his formal blessing. He said it would be the first wedding of gai-jin (foreigners) in the 1,200-year history of the temple.

The ceremony was beautiful and very meaningful to us, but we weren't legally married until the next day, when all the papers were signed and sealed. To us, the distinction only meant that we could celebrate two anniversary days (or three, if you take the international date line into account).

Actually, part of the deal Lisa and I made before agreeing to that spontaneous, impulsive wedding in the middle of a seven-day vacation was that we would get married again and again, whenever either of us felt like it. So, we have a lot of anniversary dates. But that's a conversation for another time.

What I found interesting about the process was that the government in Japan wasn't in the business of deciding whether or not Lisa and I could form a lifelong, loving partnership. The only question was whether the official in Kyoto would record it in the list of partnerships the government keeps.

All about semantics

Today, in California, the government keeps two lists of such partnerships, but there is little or no legal reason to do so. The difference between "marriage" and "domestic partnership" in this state is truly one of nomenclature. Gay couples are legally entitled to do nearly all of the things heterosexual couples can.

Reading Thursday's California Supreme Court decision on the issue of "gay marriage," I was fascinated to see the chief justice, who wrote the majority opinion, stress that the only issue was semantics. To the majority, the issue came down to whether or not having two different names for essentially the same legal relationship was unconstitutional.

The dissenting opinion, on the other hand, described the situation as another case of judicial activism, where judges substitute their personal opinions for the Will of the People (and the Legislature).

So, the issue has come down to this: Who gets to decide the legal definition of marriage? The Legislature? The courts? The vox populi?

Of course, this all begs another question: Why do we need a legal definition of "marriage"? Not all words are defined by the government. Sometimes? Yes. Where there is a possibility of misunderstanding or fraud, a legal definition can be a good idea — such as when the government steps in to define what "safe" means in reference to new drugs.

Outside of commerce, there really isn't much of a need for the government to be in the dictionary business. Language will evolve, and people will choose their words as they will, regardless of legal definitions.

When laws were rewritten to be gender-neutral, no one stopped using the words "husband" and "wife" to refer to "spouses." If the laws were rewritten to eliminate the various forms of the word "marriage," and to replace "spouse" with "domestic partners," the responsibility of defining marriage would fall somewhere else.

In religious circles, there are already different standards used for the recognition of a marriage. For example, if a religious community doesn't allow followers to marry "outside the faith," the law doesn't force it to acknowledge a civil marriage for religious or ethical purposes.

In the same way, a religion opposed to gay marriage would not have to recognize the union for religious purposes. For legal purposes, however, the union would be secured.

California should have one list

What I propose is that, instead of keeping two separate lists of personal unions differentiated by sexual preference, the state of California should keep one list and label it "Domestic Partnerships." As far as the state government was concerned, therefore, no one would be "married." People would either be in a legal domestic partnership or not in one. To some, this may seem like a "scorched earth" policy: If we can't restrict "marriage" to heterosexuals, then nobody gets to be "married."

In fact, people will continue to use words in a way consistent with their own moral and ethical belief systems. This is not unprecedented in families. Just think back to all those unrelated people your parents made you refer to as aunts and uncles. Or notice how people refer to someone as Mom or Dad, even though that person is really a step-mom or step-dad or a mother-in-law or a father-in-law.

If the Legislature moved quickly enough, it could pass a single bill amending all statutes to change the words without changing the law. That would defuse the issue before November's election, making any ballot initiative on the question moot.

If not, an alternative would be to introduce a ballot initiative that could make the linguistic change in the statutes by the Will of the People.

Why? Because if we take the definition of marriage off the table once and for all, the politicians might spend more time working on solutions to some of the other issues that are (or should be) on their agenda.

— Victor Dorff of Agoura Hills is an attorney who has written on marriage, divorce, adoption and paternity law, and would continue to refer to himself as "happily married" even if the words ceased to have a legal meaning.