In a case decided earlier this month, a federal bankruptcy appellate court found that such courts must treat same-sex domestic partners in California as if they were a married heterosexual couple.

But here’s the rub:

When consumers normally file bankruptcy, the law allows them to claim a few items as “exempt” from creditors. One of the big exemptions is known as a homestead exemption. Under California law, when a home is sold to pay off creditors, the homeowner gets to keep up to $75,000 of the proceeds from the sale.

If two people own the home, but are not married, they each get the $75,000 exemption. So the total becomes $150,000. But, under California law, if the two are married they can only claim one exemption: $75,000.

Two lesbians, Marla J. Rabin and Nanoshka Johnson, filed separate petitions for bankruptcy in 2005. At the time, they lived together in a San Francisco property. Each disclosed a 50-percent interest in the home and each claimed a full $75,000 exemption.

Rabin and Johnson had registered as domestic partners in 2000 and remained so after 2003.

The bankruptcy trustee wanted Rabin and Johnson not to be treated as “single people” but just like a married couple. Therefore, the court agreed to have their petitions jointly administered.

The trustee then sold the house at auction, and, instead of giving Rabin and Johnson each $75,000, she gave them each $37,500, which is one-half of the $75,000.

You can assume that the rest of the money, including the $75,000 they were both owed, went to creditors like the San Francisco 49ers. However, the bankruptcy attorney for Rabin and Johnson challenged the actions of the trustee in bankruptcy court. Their attorney said that if Rabin and Johnson hadn’t registered as domestic partners and were just two gals living together, they’d each get to keep $75,000. But because they decided to register as domestic partners, they lose that $75,000.

Hey, it’s a “domestic partner penalty.” You remember the “marriage penalty?”

She further said that the California Homestead Law says nothing about “domestic partners.” It only talks about “spouses” and “married persons.” Because the Legislature didn’t specifically include domestic partners in the statute, it obviously intended not to include them. She’s right.

But the bankruptcy court said that “registered domestic partners” have the same “rights, protections and benefits and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations and duties under law … as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.”

In essence, it read into a statute words that are not there.

It did so because the California Legislature wanted to equalize domestic partners with married partners. And so its interpretation was “consonant with the Legislature’s stated purpose.”

The reason why the California Legislature wouldn’t include domestic partners with married couples is, duh, under federal law domestic partners don’t get any of the economic benefits of marriage. Once we do, then fine – treat us completely equal.

Federal law provides the huge savings for married couples, such as filing joint tax returns, breaks on estate and gift taxes, etc.

It’s interesting that the first federal case to discuss same-sex marriage equates it with straight marriage when it specifically comes to a “burden” of marriage. So if domestic partners have to incur a federal burden of marriage, how come they shouldn’t also get the federal benefits of marriage? Shouldn’t they be entitled to file joint tax returns and receive all of the federal benefits of marriage?

The California Legislature should amend the Homestead Exemption Law. It shouldn’t operate as it does as a “marriage penalty” or “domestic partnership” penalty.

It’s rare that those of us in the “happily single camp” can tell the Legislature that the law shouldn't burden the domestically partnered and married. Rather, it should simply treat all people equally without regard to relationship status.