Legal scholars will no doubt be tied up in knots about whether or not California’s prop. 8 will or will not retroactively affect the pre-existing G/L/B/T marriages. But the bottom line is, if Californians eliminated the right of Queer couples to marry (enshrining such in the California Constitution,) at least some of California’s Queer families’ kids will be treated as “illegitimate.”

For the moment, the ballots are still being counted.

According to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, approximately 18,000 same-sex couples had married in California prior to the election. We don’t know the number of kids within those families and whether or not the constitutional amendment will or will not be applied retroactively to those couples and those kids, but the scale of the problem is daunting; the potential creation of thousands of “overnight bastards.”

If the law is applied retroactively, kids in Queer families will be stripped of their status as children of married couples and then reclassified as “illegitimate.”

Even if not applied retroactively, going forward, kids in Queer marriages from this point on in California will be treated as they are in most states as “illegitimate.” Florida and Arizona yesterday ensured that Queer couples’ kids there will not be treated as married couples kids as well.

Few people think of Queer couples’ kids as legally “illegitimate” yet that’s exactly how they are classified in states where Queers are barred by law from marrying. These kids are a huge almost invisible swath of modern bastardy.

While the term “bastard” is no longer in legal usage, it is certainly still in common parlance and I can think of few things more “bastardizing” than having the state dismantle your parents’ marriage via constitutional amendment in the wake of a ballot measure.

In other anti-Queer bastard related election news, Arkansas passed its measure prohibiting Queer couples or straight unmarried couples from adopting or fostering, thus doing an end run around the Arkansas Supreme Court ruling.

Naturally this will screw with parents’ ability to decide who will raise their kids. Take for example, a parent who wanted to place their child with a Lesbian aunt instead of a complete stranger. Now as Queers are legally prohibited from adopting in Arkansas, the aunt is now deemed “unqualified” to adopt, based purely upon the very nature of who and what she is.

Even beyond what these states have done to Queer couples with these insipid homophobic measures, these states are effectively sewing the scarlet “b” on kids raised by Queer couples.

This is one set of “pro-marriage,” “pro-family,” “pro-child” assholes, kids can do without. (Orwell must be spinning in his grave.)

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(Note that throughout this piece, I use “bastard” (small “b”) as the social convention and “Bastard” (capital “B”) as a means of political expression. See my (capital “B”) Bastard definition over here.)

Also note that I’m Queer. I support Queer Nation’s concept of “full spousal equivalency” rather than “gay marriage.” If you’re really all that interested in my views on such, wander of to my dKos diary over here, though note, my relationship with my ex-wife has changed quite a bit since this piece was written.