I don't know why, but right now I am more affected emotionally by the Prop 8 goings-on than I have been at least since the election.
There's so much anger on the other side about the possibility of an overturn, and I feel that so much of this anger comes from misinformation and ignorance... People don't understand how our political system works, people don't understand that gay people are just like everyone else, people don't understand that same-sex-headed families deserve access to the same civil protections as others.
This just breaks my heart. It is sometimes very difficult to feel happy about any little thing when there are whole segments of society operating to deny me and mine rights that they believe are fundamental and innate! By that kind of logic, yes, we are second-class citizens. I try very hard not to feel victimized by any of this nonsense, and just to live my life, but some days it's really hard, and today is one of those days.
I'm sure some people are thinking, "Hey, you're in Massachusetts now, so why not go ahead and get married?" And I do want to speak to that... We really do want to, but it's just so complicated! The only way I think it makes sense for us to do it is if we stay here in MA for school. Even so, despite the fact that there is full equal marriage here, it will be very, very complicated. We will have to file our state taxes as "Married filing separately", but our federal taxes will still be filed under "Single". For the purposes of anything administered by the state, we will be a married couple; for all federal purposes, we will have no legal standing whatsoever towards each other... Additionally, it will be our responsibility to keep track of what's what, and where.
We would also lose the opportunity to draw up the kinds of legal contracts that would protect us more generally, since those contracts are filed with localities and would be redundant to the marriage compact. However, it is the practice of most other localities and states to honor those kinds of general civil agreements, such as power of attorney or medical-decision agency, no matter which state they originate in. Many states either have laws specifically preventing the recognition of gay marriages from other states, or no specific legal obligation to uphold them. Technically speaking, standard contracts would protect us better in these cases than a proper marriage would, since there are few standing legal precedents for denying the validity of civil contracts on account of the sexuality of the people involved. Unless, of course, there are children involved, in which case lots and lots of places will deny the validity of legal same-sex civil agreements.
So as a married couple in Massachusetts, all our legal rights and obligations toward each other will dissolve every time we leave the state. For example, here in MA, our health insurance would be administered based on our status as a married couple; due to that, there's really no guarantee that it would have to be recognized as valid in other states. Just one example. Say we had kids... here in MA, our kids would belong to both of us under our marriage. Every damn time we left the state, say we wanted to take our kids to Disney World, we'd have to worry about whether the place we traveled to would recognize our shared parentage. People who are parents should consider this.... it hits home. And the opposition says that they want to protect families?
Even worse would be if we get married here and end up moving elsewhere for school. New York's public entities are under executive order to recognize gay marriages from other locales, but private entities (like some insurers, for example, but not others-it depends on how much New York state law regulates their business) are under no such obligation. That seems like a whole new can of worms. And DC has pretty strong domestic partnership law, but it's possible we'd have to dissolve our marriage (i.e. get a divorce!) in order to register as domestic partners in DC. It's also possible that we'd have to live in Maryland, where the domestic partner laws are very limited and where gay marriages from other places are expressly not recognized.
So, I'm just so disheartened about this today. Which is sad, because the opportunity to be legally married to my wife should be a thing of happiness, not sorrow.
Showing posts with label civil rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil rights. Show all posts
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Disappointed... but encouraged
I seem to have broken myself this week with my writing insanity and made myself sick. I was waaaaay too low to go and protest in the cold & rain today. It feels like all my organ systems are failing LOL! However needing to stay home disappointed me a very great deal. On the bright side, some were concerned that turnout would be low due to the weather, which made me feel even worse about not going, but that wasn't the case at all....
Rep. Niki Tsongas, speaking at Boston City Hall during today's action.
Regardless.....
I am extremely encouraged by the changing face of "gay-rights" activism. It used to be that no sane straight person would walk the streets with a bunch of 'mos in ActUp t-shirts. Then, for a long time, the PFLAG wing of straightdom (i.e. my mom/son/brother is gay + the supportive straight opinion leaders) would be well-reflected in our public events. Now, it truly does seem that we've built a broader coalition than ever.... straight kids with no personal interest in our cause other than feeling it's the right thing, alongside religious leaders and adherents who believe that faith compels tolerance, alongside people of all colors and backgrounds (contrary to the suggestions of all the recent hoopla, they're out there in the streets with us too!), even grandparents and teachers and union workers, all sorts came out today to show support.
You all know that I believe this battle must be fought and won in the courts, but if THIS ain't progress, call me crazy, I don't know what progress is.
Rep. Niki Tsongas, speaking at Boston City Hall during today's action.
Regardless.....
I am extremely encouraged by the changing face of "gay-rights" activism. It used to be that no sane straight person would walk the streets with a bunch of 'mos in ActUp t-shirts. Then, for a long time, the PFLAG wing of straightdom (i.e. my mom/son/brother is gay + the supportive straight opinion leaders) would be well-reflected in our public events. Now, it truly does seem that we've built a broader coalition than ever.... straight kids with no personal interest in our cause other than feeling it's the right thing, alongside religious leaders and adherents who believe that faith compels tolerance, alongside people of all colors and backgrounds (contrary to the suggestions of all the recent hoopla, they're out there in the streets with us too!), even grandparents and teachers and union workers, all sorts came out today to show support.
You all know that I believe this battle must be fought and won in the courts, but if THIS ain't progress, call me crazy, I don't know what progress is.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Yet another blog post from TNC's blog on The Atlantic!
I'm kinda hoping that these guys will come here and remark. I'd love to get this conversation going on a more personal level! Here are the comments that I responded to, one of which was a direct response to my earlier post:
@ Hassa:
I really appreciate your response. I don't take anything you said personally, I responded because a lot of people are led to think that the current statuses are equal when in fact they're just not.
A very big thing for me, is that I highly respect people's right to worship as they choose, and I don't want to take anything away from anyone or desecrate something that is sacred to someone's religious beliefs... I just want to make sure that my family is protected *by the government* in a manner that is equal to the protections afforded other families. If they want to call it something else, I don't really care what it is called, they can call it a "big fat gay wedding" or a "totally non-religious government union" or whatever they like as long as everyone has the exact same protections!
There is no way that the government can force a religious organization to perform gay marriages if they are opposed to such a thing, so nobody's altars will have to be stained with the taint of gay-ness if the church so determines. :) At the end of the day, it is enshrined in our Constitution that government doesn't force religions to do things, and it also states that religions (even majority ones) don't inform the policies of government.
I can't speak for what some or all gays would protest, I can simply say what the legal arguments are and how a separate but equal civil status would likely play out in the courts. I personally don't think I would mind too much if I truly had all of the exact same rights, but it seems likely based on legal precedent that it couldn't stay that way for long. State by state progress is definitely encouraging, but it's kind of annoying to think that if my partner and I were married here, our protections would evaporate every time we went on vacation, unless we wanted to vacation in exotic Connecticut. :)
Anyways, I appreciate your honesty. :)
@ Scott:
If civil marriage is separate from religious institutional marriage (which it currently is in most senses), then there should be no need for anyone to receive *government* benefits based on a religious ceremony (which in fact is also the case now - you obtain the legal benefits by virtue of your government marriage certificate, with or without the religious blessing). You couldn't just go into a church, get married by a religious official, and be considered legally married without following up and certifying your civil marriage with the government.
In light of this, it actually makes a great deal of sense to have two different words for the religious ceremony and the legal compact. However, my guess is that many married folk would be annoyed to have their existing marriage somehow "downgraded" to a civil union, probably even more than they are annoyed that gay civil unions might be "upgraded" to marriages. Language matters to us a great deal, doesn't it?
Quite personally, and from a civil-libertarian standpoint, I take no issue with the idea that committed polyamorous people (ha, I almost typed 'couples') should be able to designate the scope of their own families for legal purposes. However, you clearly couldn't call that a marriage! ;)
Just kidding, I was trying to make a point. Call it whatever you want. Maybe that can be a "totally non-religious government union" too. It doesn't matter what I think about other people's lives and relationships, at least not from the standpoint of what the government does or how it acts. Why should it matter what we *personally* feel distasteful about or are religiously opposed to, when what we're talking about here are agreements between individuals and the government?
--------
Either of you, or anyone else, please feel free to comment on my blog if you want to discuss further, it's certainly not my intent to hijack the page!
PS - BIG thumbs down for ANYONE blaming AAs or some other random group for this electoral outcome. I promise you that this opinion, while it may exist among the ranks of gay people and others, is NOT a representative one, for whatever that matters. Our anger at this outcome would be much better directed at the specific efforts of organized religion, and it would be much better applied as outreach and informative efforts than as hate. How totally counter-productive it is to act hateful towards those who hate us, those kind of actions solve nothing and reap no positives!!!
Erika,
I guess it comes down to abolishing something so sacred to many....and just removing the word marriage all together. Of course I am sure some of you guys will still protest about that too...why now? when gays come around you want to change the system huh? Its a religious thing....not personal..
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Very, very rarely do I see anyone point out the most obvious answer to all of this nonsense...remove the word "marriage" from all civil statute/regulation/law verbiage.
Mating pairs predate religion and religion predates nation-state governments. Marriage is a religious ceremony that got absorbed into government, not the other way around.
Take the word "marriage" out of all the laws and statutes and require those that want to gain the legal benefits get both the civil and the religious if they so choose. That pretty much ends the argument in a simple, pragmatic way.
However...there's a simple problem with that. If you're going to open what we now consider as "marriage" to mean more than a man and a woman because of "seperate but legal" or "equal protection" arguments, what do you then say to the woman who wants to marry two men, or the man who wants to marry two men (etc etc)? Why should a threesome "marriage" be any less valid than a twosome? I can think of many reasons why it would be BETTER to pool the resources of three incomes and efforts than it is for two. Why should multiple-partner marriages be valid as well?
@ Hassa:
I really appreciate your response. I don't take anything you said personally, I responded because a lot of people are led to think that the current statuses are equal when in fact they're just not.
A very big thing for me, is that I highly respect people's right to worship as they choose, and I don't want to take anything away from anyone or desecrate something that is sacred to someone's religious beliefs... I just want to make sure that my family is protected *by the government* in a manner that is equal to the protections afforded other families. If they want to call it something else, I don't really care what it is called, they can call it a "big fat gay wedding" or a "totally non-religious government union" or whatever they like as long as everyone has the exact same protections!
There is no way that the government can force a religious organization to perform gay marriages if they are opposed to such a thing, so nobody's altars will have to be stained with the taint of gay-ness if the church so determines. :) At the end of the day, it is enshrined in our Constitution that government doesn't force religions to do things, and it also states that religions (even majority ones) don't inform the policies of government.
I can't speak for what some or all gays would protest, I can simply say what the legal arguments are and how a separate but equal civil status would likely play out in the courts. I personally don't think I would mind too much if I truly had all of the exact same rights, but it seems likely based on legal precedent that it couldn't stay that way for long. State by state progress is definitely encouraging, but it's kind of annoying to think that if my partner and I were married here, our protections would evaporate every time we went on vacation, unless we wanted to vacation in exotic Connecticut. :)
Anyways, I appreciate your honesty. :)
@ Scott:
If civil marriage is separate from religious institutional marriage (which it currently is in most senses), then there should be no need for anyone to receive *government* benefits based on a religious ceremony (which in fact is also the case now - you obtain the legal benefits by virtue of your government marriage certificate, with or without the religious blessing). You couldn't just go into a church, get married by a religious official, and be considered legally married without following up and certifying your civil marriage with the government.
In light of this, it actually makes a great deal of sense to have two different words for the religious ceremony and the legal compact. However, my guess is that many married folk would be annoyed to have their existing marriage somehow "downgraded" to a civil union, probably even more than they are annoyed that gay civil unions might be "upgraded" to marriages. Language matters to us a great deal, doesn't it?
Quite personally, and from a civil-libertarian standpoint, I take no issue with the idea that committed polyamorous people (ha, I almost typed 'couples') should be able to designate the scope of their own families for legal purposes. However, you clearly couldn't call that a marriage! ;)
Just kidding, I was trying to make a point. Call it whatever you want. Maybe that can be a "totally non-religious government union" too. It doesn't matter what I think about other people's lives and relationships, at least not from the standpoint of what the government does or how it acts. Why should it matter what we *personally* feel distasteful about or are religiously opposed to, when what we're talking about here are agreements between individuals and the government?
--------
Either of you, or anyone else, please feel free to comment on my blog if you want to discuss further, it's certainly not my intent to hijack the page!
PS - BIG thumbs down for ANYONE blaming AAs or some other random group for this electoral outcome. I promise you that this opinion, while it may exist among the ranks of gay people and others, is NOT a representative one, for whatever that matters. Our anger at this outcome would be much better directed at the specific efforts of organized religion, and it would be much better applied as outreach and informative efforts than as hate. How totally counter-productive it is to act hateful towards those who hate us, those kind of actions solve nothing and reap no positives!!!
More of my blogwork on Prop 8
The original comment on Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog that inspired my response:
TNC,
I haven't quite digested the issues involved in Gay marriages. I suspect many African Americans went into the voting boots uninformed as well. In so far as the issue is about names, meaning gays are whining about the word marriage itself rather than equal benefits and treatments then I suspect there is no real discrimination... I don't understand why Gay's would be unhappy with the word Civil Unions or any other word such as Domestic Partnership for statutes that represent them, if they have equal treatments. Its quite ludicrous to demand names....its quite silly. And please don't equate this with racism, marriage is custom practiced by heterosexuals. I assure you this is not a way to discriminate you but you are gay....its reality...You should demand equal treatments and benefits not equal names....so silly.
Posted by Hassa | November 11, 2008 8:14 PM
My response:
@Hassa:
There are three reasons why "civil unions" and "domestic partnerships" are not an acceptable alternative, although they constitute an admitted improvement over no familial protections whatsoever...
1) With few exceptions, most DPs do not provide all the same rights of marriage within the state or locality that institutes them. Most civil unions do provide an equal level of protection, on the state level only. Which leads to....
2) Even if all 50 states had full-fledged civil unions, only the marriage rights and benefits controlled by the states would be applied. NO Federal rights of any kind would apply, and there are more than 1,000 Federally-sanctioned benefits to the status of marriage. A very relevant one for many people is being able to marry (or civilly unite with) your partner who is from another country. Impossible for LGBT people without full Federal marriage. Which leads to...
3) If at some point, there exists a Federal-level civil union status that is equal to marriage in all but name, it will be subject to the "separate but equal" legal argument; this argument was successfully used in the Connecticut Supreme Court to convert civil unions into equal marriage.
The practices and "customs" of "heterosexual" marriage are far less homogenous than anyone should suppose without plenty of research. And in the end, it comes down to more than a name, it comes down to a class distinction. How would you feel if AAs couldn't get married, but could only get "blarried", with limited rights and benefits as opposed to everyone else? Sure, you'd be pleased to have some protections, but some part of you would hope that someday, the government at least, and society at best, would recognize your "blarriage" as a marriage.
Also, and I can't believe I almost forgot this, the legal status of DPs and civil unions is so complicated in most places that GLBT folk are advised to seek legal counsel before entering into one so that they'll be aware of what they're getting into. For example: I live in Boston, but I'm moving next summer to go to law school. My partner and I could get married here, and our marriage would be fully legal in the state, but not for Federal purposes. If I go to school in NY, most institutions (but not all, and who knows which ones) will recognize our marriage. If I move to DC, we can have a DP, but who knows if we have to dissolve our marriage to get a DP, or if it automatically converts. If we move to CA, well, just who knows at this point LOL. If we moved to most other places, our marriage would simply cease to exist, but still be in existence in the state of Massachusetts. It's so complicated, and there's just no need when it is a government contract we are demanding and nothing more. There's very little about it that is actually "silly". :)
Having said all that, thank you for asking the questions. :)
TNC,
I haven't quite digested the issues involved in Gay marriages. I suspect many African Americans went into the voting boots uninformed as well. In so far as the issue is about names, meaning gays are whining about the word marriage itself rather than equal benefits and treatments then I suspect there is no real discrimination... I don't understand why Gay's would be unhappy with the word Civil Unions or any other word such as Domestic Partnership for statutes that represent them, if they have equal treatments. Its quite ludicrous to demand names....its quite silly. And please don't equate this with racism, marriage is custom practiced by heterosexuals. I assure you this is not a way to discriminate you but you are gay....its reality...You should demand equal treatments and benefits not equal names....so silly.
Posted by Hassa | November 11, 2008 8:14 PM
My response:
@Hassa:
There are three reasons why "civil unions" and "domestic partnerships" are not an acceptable alternative, although they constitute an admitted improvement over no familial protections whatsoever...
1) With few exceptions, most DPs do not provide all the same rights of marriage within the state or locality that institutes them. Most civil unions do provide an equal level of protection, on the state level only. Which leads to....
2) Even if all 50 states had full-fledged civil unions, only the marriage rights and benefits controlled by the states would be applied. NO Federal rights of any kind would apply, and there are more than 1,000 Federally-sanctioned benefits to the status of marriage. A very relevant one for many people is being able to marry (or civilly unite with) your partner who is from another country. Impossible for LGBT people without full Federal marriage. Which leads to...
3) If at some point, there exists a Federal-level civil union status that is equal to marriage in all but name, it will be subject to the "separate but equal" legal argument; this argument was successfully used in the Connecticut Supreme Court to convert civil unions into equal marriage.
The practices and "customs" of "heterosexual" marriage are far less homogenous than anyone should suppose without plenty of research. And in the end, it comes down to more than a name, it comes down to a class distinction. How would you feel if AAs couldn't get married, but could only get "blarried", with limited rights and benefits as opposed to everyone else? Sure, you'd be pleased to have some protections, but some part of you would hope that someday, the government at least, and society at best, would recognize your "blarriage" as a marriage.
Also, and I can't believe I almost forgot this, the legal status of DPs and civil unions is so complicated in most places that GLBT folk are advised to seek legal counsel before entering into one so that they'll be aware of what they're getting into. For example: I live in Boston, but I'm moving next summer to go to law school. My partner and I could get married here, and our marriage would be fully legal in the state, but not for Federal purposes. If I go to school in NY, most institutions (but not all, and who knows which ones) will recognize our marriage. If I move to DC, we can have a DP, but who knows if we have to dissolve our marriage to get a DP, or if it automatically converts. If we move to CA, well, just who knows at this point LOL. If we moved to most other places, our marriage would simply cease to exist, but still be in existence in the state of Massachusetts. It's so complicated, and there's just no need when it is a government contract we are demanding and nothing more. There's very little about it that is actually "silly". :)
Having said all that, thank you for asking the questions. :)
Monday, November 10, 2008
My response to the haters among us.....
Posted in response to the comments on Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog:
As a gay white activist for many different sorts of causes, all I have to say is this: if, in fact, African-Americans voted overwhelmingly to pass Prop 8, as seems to have been the case, then that choice has far, far less to do with the color of anyone's skin than with the potent influence of religion on African-American culture.
We could all sit around for an eternity debating the minutiae of the results, who turned out to vote, how they voted, etc. In the end, we as a community either have to reach out to people of faith (of *all* varieties), or hope that the courts will overturn what seems to be an unconstitutional implementation of religious principle as public policy. Maybe better, both.
It's important to note that people of faith understand the fear of persecution just as powerfully as those who are perhaps more genuinely oppressed in our times. However, they have been taught to believe that we want to take away something that God gave especially to them... That sense of privilege will be difficult to overcome.
If it turns out that the judicial system has not yet evolved enough to fully support the equal recognition of the gay community, then our "target" should be the faith community, and the application should be one of outreach and establishing common ground, not blind rage.
I don't mean to say that the effort will be won on the ground, because like all other equal protection issues, this one will have to be decided in the courts in order to find enforcement. Regardless, we *can* benefit from broader support on the ground, and however amusing it may be to laugh at Mormons' magic underwear, or however easy it may be to target statistics about the African-American vote, directing our collective anger at narrow groups of people can hardly broaden our coalition. We have to channel this passion in productive directions.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
>: / Language Alert! Anger Alert! Prop 8 and GLBT Betrayal.
All this talk about Prop 8 is really just making me sad and angry. Yes, there's hope, it's only a matter of time, it is an inevitability, the legal arguments are all there, eventually our cause will win even in the harsher courts of public opinion, yada yada yada. So why do I feel so fucked up? Why do I feel so damned betrayed when I hear my well-intentioned gay brethren say that we have to stop suing and make nice with the public before we can win the courts? That's just ignorant. That's mere denial. Change of this caliber never begins with the public, though it is important to note that it is eventually cemented and flourishes inside public opinion. To be frank, I don't really care if we piss people off by being litigious, because the court is where things happen! If it were up to the public at large to change things, we would all be screwed. It requires leadership for a nation of this size and diversity to change fundamentally. The herd, unfortunately, will not lead itself to the pasture.
Look... It does me no good to walk down the street and get 20 people to agree that I am a perfectly nice lesbian and a decent American who has the right to marry my partner of many years. There are another 20 (at least) waiting around the corner to try to ex-gay me, to physically assault me, to call me a fat dyke, to tell me I'm confused, to explain why their deity has compelled them to vote away my rights again and again, to shriek that I am taking something special away from them, to shield their children from my gaze, to openly express distaste, and to impose their personal beliefs on my civil life. Somewhere, my gay brethren assert, there are another ten lurking about in the shadows, another ten who are ambivalent, or on the fence, or don't really care what anybody does, or sort of think that being gay is gross but don't really mind if we want to get married, or think that marriage is kind of stupid and that it's odd we would desire it, or "have some gay friends" and are sympathetic but kind of think that marriage is a hetero thing. These ten, my comrades assert, are the prizes. Whoever wins their support will have the ever-so-treasured majority of public opinion.
Um, fuckin' ridiculous. I reject that completely. It's supposed to be my job to convince people who don't really give a shit about anything, or whose distaste for me is merely mild or generic or solely secular in nature, that I'm a whole person and an equal American citizen? Hell with that. My optimistic brethren assert that simply by living long enough among these 10 people, and even among some of the nastier 20, that American gays will win hearts and minds, like the nice and funny gays on Will and Grace did. We're harmless, we're normal, we're jolly, we sweetly and docilely wait on the sidelines for our fair shake. We would never sue you. Come see us in our natural habitats, from WeHo, the Village, and the Castro, on into the suburbs and rural America. Gosh, we're just like you!
This may sound terrible... but I don't need any of those 50 people to be OK with my sexuality, my relationships, my personal "choices", or my "lifestyle". Granted, it can be surprising, encouraging, and make a great difference in my day, or my life, when I encounter the supportive ones; however, that support neither solely nor primarily endows me with the freedom to live my life as I see fit, no matter how it alleviates my burden and lifts my spirits. Only the rule of law can guarantee that, and when it comes to minority rights, that rule is not up to the majority; thank goodness, because the majority rarely espouses the rights of the minority, particularly in the case where as pervasive an influence as the Church has convinced them that we are taking something away from them that God gave especially to them. I do not blame all believers, and I have been personally buoyed by many who gave their time, money, and understanding to our cause. In fact, I don't much tend to blame the people themselves, even the nasty ones. They are only repeating what they have been taught, on the behalf of an Authority that they believe is absolute.
Which brings me to my point... there will be plenty of people who can never be convinced that we deserve equality, just as surely as there are blatant racists in our country today, even after all of the progress that has been made. The black man sitting at the lunch counter didn't need the white patrons to feel great about him sitting there, though it surely couldn't have hurt; he needed the power of the law, the edicts of the court behind him, to make certain they knew that no matter what they felt about it, he had the right to sit there just as they did. The black girl ascending the steps into the school filled with white students didn't need the other students or their parents to be okay with her presence, although if they had been, maybe she wouldn't have needed the armed detail; she needed only for them to understand that the law was on her side, and she was acting as it was her right to do. This was her right, which many would say was "God-given"; this was her right, in fact hers by birth as an American citizen, anyone's religious beliefs notwithstanding.
Just as relevant, if perhaps less palatable to many: John Lawrence and Tyron Gardner didn't need the Texas cops who barged into the apartment to be happy about catching them entwined; they simply needed the court to make it perfectly clear that what they were doing was no crime. Remember this, if you start to feel too optimistic about our current situation; these men were arrested ten years ago, and the case was decided a touch over five years ago. Up until that point, it was still illegal to engage in homosexual activity in several states. FIVE YEARS AGO. In fact, the 2000 measure to ban gay marriage in the California civil code, with the much-touted 61%-39% result, took place when the federal legal precedent was that gay folks had no particular rights to privacy or anything else that others enjoyed. Not terribly surprising, right? What I do find surprising is that now, eight years later, gays are no longer on trial in the legal sense, even if they remain so in the sociocultural sense, and yet, in eight years, even with our personal lives decriminalized, we've only managed to convince 9% of Californians that gay marriage is OK? Even with us "living amongst them" in domestic partnerships, first the "lite" variety, then the full-blown sort established in 2005? And even including the unknown, but possibly significant, percentage of Californians who had no problem adjusting the civil code but balked at amending the Constitution?
These people, the Californians, as a whole possibly some of the most tolerant and socially moderate people in the country, are the ones I'm supposed to trust with the basic expressions of my humanity? Can I vote to only trust half of them? The other half, or just a bit more in fact, will plainly not be reliable in that regard. But I'm supposed to break 'em down and convince them, of what, that I'm cool? Not gonna prey on their daughters? My gay male friends are OK to teach their children? And.... you want me to shout louder than the preachers in their pulpits? Because no matter how long we "live next door" or "work at the same place" or "send our kids to the same school", that sound of entitlement coming from their faiths is one I can not drown out, no matter how normal and adorable I become.
Know what? Thanks to the ACLU and friends, I won't have to, because the rule of law is on my side... and that means that someday, being accepted for who I am can go back to being a simple joy, as opposed to an obnoxious and burdensome agenda.
Look... It does me no good to walk down the street and get 20 people to agree that I am a perfectly nice lesbian and a decent American who has the right to marry my partner of many years. There are another 20 (at least) waiting around the corner to try to ex-gay me, to physically assault me, to call me a fat dyke, to tell me I'm confused, to explain why their deity has compelled them to vote away my rights again and again, to shriek that I am taking something special away from them, to shield their children from my gaze, to openly express distaste, and to impose their personal beliefs on my civil life. Somewhere, my gay brethren assert, there are another ten lurking about in the shadows, another ten who are ambivalent, or on the fence, or don't really care what anybody does, or sort of think that being gay is gross but don't really mind if we want to get married, or think that marriage is kind of stupid and that it's odd we would desire it, or "have some gay friends" and are sympathetic but kind of think that marriage is a hetero thing. These ten, my comrades assert, are the prizes. Whoever wins their support will have the ever-so-treasured majority of public opinion.
Um, fuckin' ridiculous. I reject that completely. It's supposed to be my job to convince people who don't really give a shit about anything, or whose distaste for me is merely mild or generic or solely secular in nature, that I'm a whole person and an equal American citizen? Hell with that. My optimistic brethren assert that simply by living long enough among these 10 people, and even among some of the nastier 20, that American gays will win hearts and minds, like the nice and funny gays on Will and Grace did. We're harmless, we're normal, we're jolly, we sweetly and docilely wait on the sidelines for our fair shake. We would never sue you. Come see us in our natural habitats, from WeHo, the Village, and the Castro, on into the suburbs and rural America. Gosh, we're just like you!
This may sound terrible... but I don't need any of those 50 people to be OK with my sexuality, my relationships, my personal "choices", or my "lifestyle". Granted, it can be surprising, encouraging, and make a great difference in my day, or my life, when I encounter the supportive ones; however, that support neither solely nor primarily endows me with the freedom to live my life as I see fit, no matter how it alleviates my burden and lifts my spirits. Only the rule of law can guarantee that, and when it comes to minority rights, that rule is not up to the majority; thank goodness, because the majority rarely espouses the rights of the minority, particularly in the case where as pervasive an influence as the Church has convinced them that we are taking something away from them that God gave especially to them. I do not blame all believers, and I have been personally buoyed by many who gave their time, money, and understanding to our cause. In fact, I don't much tend to blame the people themselves, even the nasty ones. They are only repeating what they have been taught, on the behalf of an Authority that they believe is absolute.
Which brings me to my point... there will be plenty of people who can never be convinced that we deserve equality, just as surely as there are blatant racists in our country today, even after all of the progress that has been made. The black man sitting at the lunch counter didn't need the white patrons to feel great about him sitting there, though it surely couldn't have hurt; he needed the power of the law, the edicts of the court behind him, to make certain they knew that no matter what they felt about it, he had the right to sit there just as they did. The black girl ascending the steps into the school filled with white students didn't need the other students or their parents to be okay with her presence, although if they had been, maybe she wouldn't have needed the armed detail; she needed only for them to understand that the law was on her side, and she was acting as it was her right to do. This was her right, which many would say was "God-given"; this was her right, in fact hers by birth as an American citizen, anyone's religious beliefs notwithstanding.
Just as relevant, if perhaps less palatable to many: John Lawrence and Tyron Gardner didn't need the Texas cops who barged into the apartment to be happy about catching them entwined; they simply needed the court to make it perfectly clear that what they were doing was no crime. Remember this, if you start to feel too optimistic about our current situation; these men were arrested ten years ago, and the case was decided a touch over five years ago. Up until that point, it was still illegal to engage in homosexual activity in several states. FIVE YEARS AGO. In fact, the 2000 measure to ban gay marriage in the California civil code, with the much-touted 61%-39% result, took place when the federal legal precedent was that gay folks had no particular rights to privacy or anything else that others enjoyed. Not terribly surprising, right? What I do find surprising is that now, eight years later, gays are no longer on trial in the legal sense, even if they remain so in the sociocultural sense, and yet, in eight years, even with our personal lives decriminalized, we've only managed to convince 9% of Californians that gay marriage is OK? Even with us "living amongst them" in domestic partnerships, first the "lite" variety, then the full-blown sort established in 2005? And even including the unknown, but possibly significant, percentage of Californians who had no problem adjusting the civil code but balked at amending the Constitution?
These people, the Californians, as a whole possibly some of the most tolerant and socially moderate people in the country, are the ones I'm supposed to trust with the basic expressions of my humanity? Can I vote to only trust half of them? The other half, or just a bit more in fact, will plainly not be reliable in that regard. But I'm supposed to break 'em down and convince them, of what, that I'm cool? Not gonna prey on their daughters? My gay male friends are OK to teach their children? And.... you want me to shout louder than the preachers in their pulpits? Because no matter how long we "live next door" or "work at the same place" or "send our kids to the same school", that sound of entitlement coming from their faiths is one I can not drown out, no matter how normal and adorable I become.
Know what? Thanks to the ACLU and friends, I won't have to, because the rule of law is on my side... and that means that someday, being accepted for who I am can go back to being a simple joy, as opposed to an obnoxious and burdensome agenda.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Traditional Marriage Perverts the Tradition of Marriage
This was borrowed from a friend of a friend. A bit late, I suppose, and a bit long, but it neatly sums up exactly what it is that "traditional marriage" proponents are trying to protect.
Traditional Marriage Perverts the Tradition of Marriage
By Jeff Goode (Californian)
About a decade ago, as a young playwright, I was hired to write a script for the Renaissance Festival of Kansas City. It was a period piece about knights and jousts and intrigues of the court, building up to a lavish royal wedding between a prince and a princess, restoring peace to the troubled land.
This was one of my first professional writing assignments, so I was really excited about doing all the research and making sure that everything was historically accurate, especially the royal wedding which needed to follow all the traditions exactly.
Over a summer of research, I learned a lot of surprising facts about the history of marriage and weddings, but by far the most shocking discovery of all was that the tradition of marriage-as-we-know-it simply did not exist in those days. Almost everything we have come to associate with marriage and weddings - the white dress, the holy vows, the fancy cake and the birdseed - dates back a mere 50 or 100 years at the most. In many cases less.
And the handful of traditions that do go back farther than that are, frankly, horrifying. The tossing of the garter, for example, evolved from a 14th Century tradition of ripping the clothing off of the bride's body as she left the ceremony in order to "loosen her up" for the wedding night. Wedding guests fought over the choicest bits of undergarment, with the garter being the greatest prize.
Savvy brides got in the habit of carrying extra garters in their bodice to throw to the male guests in hopes of escaping the ceremony with some shred of modesty intact!
It turns out that marriage, in days of old, was a barbaric custom which was little more than a crude exchange of livestock at it's most civilized, and a little less than ritualized abduction at it's worst. That's why you'll find no reference to white weddings in the Bible, or the union of one man and one woman. Because up until fairly recently, there was nothing religious about it.
You will of course find plenty of biblical bigamy, practiced by even the most godly of heroes - Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon - because that's what marriage was in those days. Even in more enlightened New Testament times, the only wedding worth mentioning (the one at Cana) is notable only for the miraculous amount of wine consumed.
In the 21st Century, we've heard a lot about the sanctity of marriage, as if that were something that has been around forever, but in reality the phrase was invented in 2004. Google it for yourself and see if you can find a single reference to the "sanctity of marriage" before the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions in that state. The proverbial Sanctity of Marriage sprang into being because opponents of gay marriage needed a logical reason to overturn an established legal precedent. And the only thing that trumps the Constitution is God himself.
Unfortunately, God is still pretty new to the whole marriage game (or he might have made an honest woman out of the Virgin Mary, am I right? Try the veal!)
The truth is that marriage has always been more a secular tradition rather than a religious one. Up until the early Renaissance, in fact, couples were traditionally married on the church's front doorstep, because wedding ceremonies were considered too vulgar to be performed inside the building: After all, there was implied sex in the vows and shameless public displays of affection. No clergyman in his right mind would have allowed such an unholy abomination on the premises.
But as times changed, ideas and attitudes about marriage also changed. So when people became religious, matrimony became holy. When people became nudists, clothing became optional. And so on throughout history.
And the wonderful thing about the institution of marriage - the reason it has remained strong and relevant through thousands of years of ever-changing times - is its unique ability to change with those times.
Marriage is, and always has been, a constantly evolving tradition that never fails to incorporate the latest shifts in culture and climate, changing social habits, fashions and even fads. (Because, seriously, that chicken dance is not in the Bible.)
Thus, in the 1800s when the sole purpose of marriage was procreation and housekeeping, marriage between an older man and a hard-working tween girl was considered perfectly normal. Today we call it pedophilia.
For thousands of years marriage was essentially a business transaction
between the parents of the bride and groom. But in the last century or so, we've finally seen the triumph of this new-fangled notion that marriage should be about a loving relationship between two consenting adults.
Followers of the Mormon faith can tell you that the traditions of their forefathers included a devout belief that polygamy was appropriate and sanctified. But modern Mormons generally don't support that vision of happiness for their daughters.
And during the Civil Rights era, when opponents of interracial marriage tried to pass laws making such couples illegal, we came to realize that they, too, were wrong in trying to redefine marriage to prevent those new-found relationships.
Always marriage has triumphed by becoming a timely celebration of our society, rather than a backlash against it. It's strange, then, to see "tradition" used as a weapon against change, when change is the source of all its greatest traditions.
Just ask the white dress:
In 1840, Queen Victoria of England married Prince Albert wearing a beautiful white lace dress - in defiance of tradition - in order to promote the sale of English lace! The image was so powerful that practically overnight the white wedding gown became de rigueur for the well-heeled bride. And then it became de rigueur for every bride.
By the dawn of the 20th Century, the white dress had also inexplicably come to symbolize chastity. (Even though blue was traditionally the color of virginity - "something borrowed, something blue...")
And the new equation of white with virginity eventually achieved such a rigid orthodoxy that older readers may remember a time when wedding guests who happened to know that the bride was not perfectly pure would have felt a moral obligation to demand that she change into something off-white before walking down the aisle.
Fortunately, as cultural norms eased during the Sexual Revolution, a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy took hold where all brides were required to wear white regardless of their virtue and the less said about it the better.
In recent years, as a generation of divorcees have remarried and a generation of young people have entered wedlock with some degree of "experience", the pretense of a connection between literal virginity and the bridal gown has become entirely obsolete. A colorful journey for a custom which has always seemed iron clad, even as it was evolving over time.
And not all traditions have to do with changing sexual standards. The long-time custom of pelting the newlyweds with birdseed did not exist before the 1970s when animal-lovers realized that songbirds were bloating on dried rice that they found on the ground after the former custom.
Economic times have caused families to rethink the age-old convention of the bride's father paying for the entire ceremony - a last vestige of the days of dowries when a young man had to be bribed to take a free-loading daughter off her parents' hands - that well-established custom has gradually given way to a more humane approach to sharing the financial burden.
Even religious traditions of marriage have experienced constant metamorphosis over the years. As more interfaith couples have wed, we have seen the emergence of multi-disciplinary ceremonies where couples have chosen not to follow the out-dated tradition of rejecting one or both of their faiths as a prerequisite of holy matrimony.
One of the most beautiful weddings I ever attended was between a young Jewish fellow and his Catholic fiancé, whose mother was born in France. The ceremony was performed by both a rabbi and a priest with intertwining vows in English, Latin, Hebrew and French. A perfect expression of the union of their two families, yet one which would have been unthinkable just a generation before.
But, again, marriage has such a long history of changing with the ever-changing times, that the last thing we should expect from it is to stop growing and changing. We know today that marriage is not a rote ritual handed down by God to Adam & Eve and preserved verbatim for thousands of years. It is, rather, an expression of how each community, each culture, and each faith, chooses to celebrate the joining of loved ones who have decided to make a life together.
Christians do not expect Jesus to be central to a Buddhist wedding, nor do Jews refuse to acknowledge Lutheran unions because they didn't include a reading from the Torah. Marriage is what we each make of it. And that's the way it always should be.
Perhaps the greatest irony of the traditional marriage argument is that it seeks to preserve a singular tradition that has, in fact, never existed at any point in history.
Because, honestly, which traditional definition of marriage do we want our Constitution to protect?
... The one from Book of Genesis when family values meant multiple wives and concubines?
... Or the marriages of the Middle Ages when women were traded like cattle and weddings were too bawdy for church?
... Since this is America, should we preserve marriage as it existed in 1776 when arranged marriages were still commonplace?
... Or the traditions of 1850 when California became a state and marriage was customarily between one man and one woman-or-girl of age 11 and up?
... Or are we really seeking to protect a more modern vision of traditional marriage, say from the 1950s when it was illegal for whites to wed blacks or hispanics?
... Or the traditional marriage of the late 1960s when couples were routinely excommunicated for marrying outside their faith?
No, the truth of the matter is, that we're trying to preserve traditional marriage the way it "was and always has been" during a very narrow period in the late 70s / early 80s - just before most of us found out that gays even existed: Between one man and one woman of legal age and willing consent. Regardless of race or religion (within reason). ...Plus the chicken dance and the birdseed. Those are okay.
But there's something profoundly disturbing about amending the Constitution to define anything about the 1970s as "the way God intended it".
Traditional Marriage Perverts the Tradition of Marriage
By Jeff Goode (Californian)
About a decade ago, as a young playwright, I was hired to write a script for the Renaissance Festival of Kansas City. It was a period piece about knights and jousts and intrigues of the court, building up to a lavish royal wedding between a prince and a princess, restoring peace to the troubled land.
This was one of my first professional writing assignments, so I was really excited about doing all the research and making sure that everything was historically accurate, especially the royal wedding which needed to follow all the traditions exactly.
Over a summer of research, I learned a lot of surprising facts about the history of marriage and weddings, but by far the most shocking discovery of all was that the tradition of marriage-as-we-know-it simply did not exist in those days. Almost everything we have come to associate with marriage and weddings - the white dress, the holy vows, the fancy cake and the birdseed - dates back a mere 50 or 100 years at the most. In many cases less.
And the handful of traditions that do go back farther than that are, frankly, horrifying. The tossing of the garter, for example, evolved from a 14th Century tradition of ripping the clothing off of the bride's body as she left the ceremony in order to "loosen her up" for the wedding night. Wedding guests fought over the choicest bits of undergarment, with the garter being the greatest prize.
Savvy brides got in the habit of carrying extra garters in their bodice to throw to the male guests in hopes of escaping the ceremony with some shred of modesty intact!
It turns out that marriage, in days of old, was a barbaric custom which was little more than a crude exchange of livestock at it's most civilized, and a little less than ritualized abduction at it's worst. That's why you'll find no reference to white weddings in the Bible, or the union of one man and one woman. Because up until fairly recently, there was nothing religious about it.
You will of course find plenty of biblical bigamy, practiced by even the most godly of heroes - Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon - because that's what marriage was in those days. Even in more enlightened New Testament times, the only wedding worth mentioning (the one at Cana) is notable only for the miraculous amount of wine consumed.
In the 21st Century, we've heard a lot about the sanctity of marriage, as if that were something that has been around forever, but in reality the phrase was invented in 2004. Google it for yourself and see if you can find a single reference to the "sanctity of marriage" before the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions in that state. The proverbial Sanctity of Marriage sprang into being because opponents of gay marriage needed a logical reason to overturn an established legal precedent. And the only thing that trumps the Constitution is God himself.
Unfortunately, God is still pretty new to the whole marriage game (or he might have made an honest woman out of the Virgin Mary, am I right? Try the veal!)
The truth is that marriage has always been more a secular tradition rather than a religious one. Up until the early Renaissance, in fact, couples were traditionally married on the church's front doorstep, because wedding ceremonies were considered too vulgar to be performed inside the building: After all, there was implied sex in the vows and shameless public displays of affection. No clergyman in his right mind would have allowed such an unholy abomination on the premises.
But as times changed, ideas and attitudes about marriage also changed. So when people became religious, matrimony became holy. When people became nudists, clothing became optional. And so on throughout history.
And the wonderful thing about the institution of marriage - the reason it has remained strong and relevant through thousands of years of ever-changing times - is its unique ability to change with those times.
Marriage is, and always has been, a constantly evolving tradition that never fails to incorporate the latest shifts in culture and climate, changing social habits, fashions and even fads. (Because, seriously, that chicken dance is not in the Bible.)
Thus, in the 1800s when the sole purpose of marriage was procreation and housekeeping, marriage between an older man and a hard-working tween girl was considered perfectly normal. Today we call it pedophilia.
For thousands of years marriage was essentially a business transaction
between the parents of the bride and groom. But in the last century or so, we've finally seen the triumph of this new-fangled notion that marriage should be about a loving relationship between two consenting adults.
Followers of the Mormon faith can tell you that the traditions of their forefathers included a devout belief that polygamy was appropriate and sanctified. But modern Mormons generally don't support that vision of happiness for their daughters.
And during the Civil Rights era, when opponents of interracial marriage tried to pass laws making such couples illegal, we came to realize that they, too, were wrong in trying to redefine marriage to prevent those new-found relationships.
Always marriage has triumphed by becoming a timely celebration of our society, rather than a backlash against it. It's strange, then, to see "tradition" used as a weapon against change, when change is the source of all its greatest traditions.
Just ask the white dress:
In 1840, Queen Victoria of England married Prince Albert wearing a beautiful white lace dress - in defiance of tradition - in order to promote the sale of English lace! The image was so powerful that practically overnight the white wedding gown became de rigueur for the well-heeled bride. And then it became de rigueur for every bride.
By the dawn of the 20th Century, the white dress had also inexplicably come to symbolize chastity. (Even though blue was traditionally the color of virginity - "something borrowed, something blue...")
And the new equation of white with virginity eventually achieved such a rigid orthodoxy that older readers may remember a time when wedding guests who happened to know that the bride was not perfectly pure would have felt a moral obligation to demand that she change into something off-white before walking down the aisle.
Fortunately, as cultural norms eased during the Sexual Revolution, a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy took hold where all brides were required to wear white regardless of their virtue and the less said about it the better.
In recent years, as a generation of divorcees have remarried and a generation of young people have entered wedlock with some degree of "experience", the pretense of a connection between literal virginity and the bridal gown has become entirely obsolete. A colorful journey for a custom which has always seemed iron clad, even as it was evolving over time.
And not all traditions have to do with changing sexual standards. The long-time custom of pelting the newlyweds with birdseed did not exist before the 1970s when animal-lovers realized that songbirds were bloating on dried rice that they found on the ground after the former custom.
Economic times have caused families to rethink the age-old convention of the bride's father paying for the entire ceremony - a last vestige of the days of dowries when a young man had to be bribed to take a free-loading daughter off her parents' hands - that well-established custom has gradually given way to a more humane approach to sharing the financial burden.
Even religious traditions of marriage have experienced constant metamorphosis over the years. As more interfaith couples have wed, we have seen the emergence of multi-disciplinary ceremonies where couples have chosen not to follow the out-dated tradition of rejecting one or both of their faiths as a prerequisite of holy matrimony.
One of the most beautiful weddings I ever attended was between a young Jewish fellow and his Catholic fiancé, whose mother was born in France. The ceremony was performed by both a rabbi and a priest with intertwining vows in English, Latin, Hebrew and French. A perfect expression of the union of their two families, yet one which would have been unthinkable just a generation before.
But, again, marriage has such a long history of changing with the ever-changing times, that the last thing we should expect from it is to stop growing and changing. We know today that marriage is not a rote ritual handed down by God to Adam & Eve and preserved verbatim for thousands of years. It is, rather, an expression of how each community, each culture, and each faith, chooses to celebrate the joining of loved ones who have decided to make a life together.
Christians do not expect Jesus to be central to a Buddhist wedding, nor do Jews refuse to acknowledge Lutheran unions because they didn't include a reading from the Torah. Marriage is what we each make of it. And that's the way it always should be.
Perhaps the greatest irony of the traditional marriage argument is that it seeks to preserve a singular tradition that has, in fact, never existed at any point in history.
Because, honestly, which traditional definition of marriage do we want our Constitution to protect?
... The one from Book of Genesis when family values meant multiple wives and concubines?
... Or the marriages of the Middle Ages when women were traded like cattle and weddings were too bawdy for church?
... Since this is America, should we preserve marriage as it existed in 1776 when arranged marriages were still commonplace?
... Or the traditions of 1850 when California became a state and marriage was customarily between one man and one woman-or-girl of age 11 and up?
... Or are we really seeking to protect a more modern vision of traditional marriage, say from the 1950s when it was illegal for whites to wed blacks or hispanics?
... Or the traditional marriage of the late 1960s when couples were routinely excommunicated for marrying outside their faith?
No, the truth of the matter is, that we're trying to preserve traditional marriage the way it "was and always has been" during a very narrow period in the late 70s / early 80s - just before most of us found out that gays even existed: Between one man and one woman of legal age and willing consent. Regardless of race or religion (within reason). ...Plus the chicken dance and the birdseed. Those are okay.
But there's something profoundly disturbing about amending the Constitution to define anything about the 1970s as "the way God intended it".
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I am one giant goosebump
I'm sitting in a bar in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and history has just come f'in crashing down all around me, around all of us. I'm in the street and there are strangers running by hugging me and crying. Today's the first day of the rest of it. Yes we did!
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
LA Times Editorial on Prop 8 - Couldn't have said it better myself.
November 2, 2008
Clever magicians practice the art of misdirection -- distracting the eyes of the audience to something attention-grabbing but irrelevant so that no one notices what the magician is really doing. Look over at that fuchsia scarf, up this sleeve, at anything besides the actual trick.
The campaign promoting Proposition 8, which proposes to amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, has masterfully misdirected its audience, California voters. Look at the first-graders in San Francisco, attending their lesbian teacher's wedding! Look at Catholic Charities, halting its adoption services in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal! Look at the church that lost its tax exemption over gay marriage! Look at anything except what Proposition 8 is actually about: a group of people who are trying to impose on the state their belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.
Clever magicians practice the art of misdirection -- distracting the eyes of the audience to something attention-grabbing but irrelevant so that no one notices what the magician is really doing. Look over at that fuchsia scarf, up this sleeve, at anything besides the actual trick.
The campaign promoting Proposition 8, which proposes to amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, has masterfully misdirected its audience, California voters. Look at the first-graders in San Francisco, attending their lesbian teacher's wedding! Look at Catholic Charities, halting its adoption services in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal! Look at the church that lost its tax exemption over gay marriage! Look at anything except what Proposition 8 is actually about: a group of people who are trying to impose on the state their belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.
That truth would never sell in tolerant, live-and-let-live California, and so it has been hidden behind a series of misleading half-truths. Once the sleight of hand is revealed, though, the campaign's illusions fall away.
Take the story of Catholic Charities. The service arm of the Roman Catholic Church closed its adoption program in Massachusetts not because of the state's gay marriage law but because of a gay anti-discrimination law passed many years earlier. In fact, the charity had voluntarily placed older foster children in gay and lesbian households -- among those most willing to take hard-to-place children -- until the church hierarchy was alerted and demanded that adoptions conform to the church's religious teaching, which was in conflict with state law. The Proposition 8 campaign, funded in large part by Mormons who were urged to do so by their church, does not mention that the Mormon church's adoption arm in Massachusetts is still operating, even though it does not place children in gay and lesbian households.
How can this be? It's a matter of public accountability, not infringement on religion. Catholic Charities acted as a state contractor, receiving state and federal money to find homes for special-needs children who were wards of the state, and it faced the loss of public funding if it did not comply with the anti-discrimination law. In contrast, LDS (for Latter-day Saints) Family Services runs a private adoption service without public funding. Its work, and its ability to follow its religious teachings, have not been altered.
That San Francisco field trip? The children who attended the wedding had their parents' signed permission, as law requires. A year ago, with the same permission, they could have traveled to their teacher's domestic-partnership ceremony. Proposition 8 does not change the rules about what children are exposed to in school. The state Education Code does not allow schools to teach comprehensive sex education -- which includes instruction about marriage -- to children whose parents object.
Another "Yes on 8" canard is that the continuation of same-sex marriage will force churches and other religious groups to perform such marriages or face losing their tax-exempt status. Proponents point to a case in New Jersey, where a Methodist-based nonprofit owned seaside land that included a boardwalk pavilion. It obtained an exemption from state property tax for the land on the grounds that it was open for public use and access. Events such as weddings -- of any religion -- could be held in the pavilion by reservation. But when a lesbian couple sought to book the pavilion for a commitment ceremony, the nonprofit balked, saying this went against its religious beliefs.
The court ruled against the nonprofit, not because gay rights trump religious rights but because public land has to be open to everyone or it's not public. The ruling does not affect churches' religious tax exemptions or their freedom to marry whom they please on their private property, just as Catholic priests do not have to perform marriages for divorced people and Orthodox synagogues can refuse to provide space for the weddings of interfaith couples. And Proposition 8 has no bearing on the issue; note that the New Jersey case wasn't about a wedding ceremony.
Much has been made about same-sex marriage changing the traditional definition of marriage. But marriage has evolved for thousands of years, from polygamous structures in which brides were so much chattel to today's idealized love matches. In seeking to add a sentence to California's Constitution that says, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized," Proposition 8 supporters seek to enforce adherence to their own religious or personal definition. The traditional makeup of families has changed too, in ways that many religious people find immoral. Single parents raise their children; couples divorce and blend families. Yet same-sex marriage is the only departure from tradition that has been targeted for constitutional eradication.
Religions and their believers are free to define marriage as they please; they are free to consider homosexuality a sin. But they are not free to impose their definitions of morality on the state. Proposition 8 proponents know this, which is why they have misdirected the debate with highly colored illusions about homosexuals trying to take away the rights of religious Californians. Since May, when the state Supreme Court overturned a proposed ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, more than 16,000 devoted gay and lesbian couples have celebrated the creation of stable, loving households, of equal legal stature with other households. Their happiness in no way diminishes the rights or happiness of others.
Californians must cast a clear eye on Proposition 8's real intentions. It seeks to change the state Constitution in a rare and terrible way, to impose a single moral belief on everyone and to deprive a targeted group of people of civil rights that are now guaranteed. This is something that no Californian, of any religious belief, should accept. Vote no to the bigotry of Proposition 8.
Original Article Here
Take the story of Catholic Charities. The service arm of the Roman Catholic Church closed its adoption program in Massachusetts not because of the state's gay marriage law but because of a gay anti-discrimination law passed many years earlier. In fact, the charity had voluntarily placed older foster children in gay and lesbian households -- among those most willing to take hard-to-place children -- until the church hierarchy was alerted and demanded that adoptions conform to the church's religious teaching, which was in conflict with state law. The Proposition 8 campaign, funded in large part by Mormons who were urged to do so by their church, does not mention that the Mormon church's adoption arm in Massachusetts is still operating, even though it does not place children in gay and lesbian households.
How can this be? It's a matter of public accountability, not infringement on religion. Catholic Charities acted as a state contractor, receiving state and federal money to find homes for special-needs children who were wards of the state, and it faced the loss of public funding if it did not comply with the anti-discrimination law. In contrast, LDS (for Latter-day Saints) Family Services runs a private adoption service without public funding. Its work, and its ability to follow its religious teachings, have not been altered.
That San Francisco field trip? The children who attended the wedding had their parents' signed permission, as law requires. A year ago, with the same permission, they could have traveled to their teacher's domestic-partnership ceremony. Proposition 8 does not change the rules about what children are exposed to in school. The state Education Code does not allow schools to teach comprehensive sex education -- which includes instruction about marriage -- to children whose parents object.
Another "Yes on 8" canard is that the continuation of same-sex marriage will force churches and other religious groups to perform such marriages or face losing their tax-exempt status. Proponents point to a case in New Jersey, where a Methodist-based nonprofit owned seaside land that included a boardwalk pavilion. It obtained an exemption from state property tax for the land on the grounds that it was open for public use and access. Events such as weddings -- of any religion -- could be held in the pavilion by reservation. But when a lesbian couple sought to book the pavilion for a commitment ceremony, the nonprofit balked, saying this went against its religious beliefs.
The court ruled against the nonprofit, not because gay rights trump religious rights but because public land has to be open to everyone or it's not public. The ruling does not affect churches' religious tax exemptions or their freedom to marry whom they please on their private property, just as Catholic priests do not have to perform marriages for divorced people and Orthodox synagogues can refuse to provide space for the weddings of interfaith couples. And Proposition 8 has no bearing on the issue; note that the New Jersey case wasn't about a wedding ceremony.
Much has been made about same-sex marriage changing the traditional definition of marriage. But marriage has evolved for thousands of years, from polygamous structures in which brides were so much chattel to today's idealized love matches. In seeking to add a sentence to California's Constitution that says, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized," Proposition 8 supporters seek to enforce adherence to their own religious or personal definition. The traditional makeup of families has changed too, in ways that many religious people find immoral. Single parents raise their children; couples divorce and blend families. Yet same-sex marriage is the only departure from tradition that has been targeted for constitutional eradication.
Religions and their believers are free to define marriage as they please; they are free to consider homosexuality a sin. But they are not free to impose their definitions of morality on the state. Proposition 8 proponents know this, which is why they have misdirected the debate with highly colored illusions about homosexuals trying to take away the rights of religious Californians. Since May, when the state Supreme Court overturned a proposed ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, more than 16,000 devoted gay and lesbian couples have celebrated the creation of stable, loving households, of equal legal stature with other households. Their happiness in no way diminishes the rights or happiness of others.
Californians must cast a clear eye on Proposition 8's real intentions. It seeks to change the state Constitution in a rare and terrible way, to impose a single moral belief on everyone and to deprive a targeted group of people of civil rights that are now guaranteed. This is something that no Californian, of any religious belief, should accept. Vote no to the bigotry of Proposition 8.
Original Article Here
Monday, October 27, 2008
The 6-4 Black Guy | HuffPost
This story breaks my heart, because I know it to be true.
For those who think racism is dead in this country and everyone now gets the same fair shake, run your eyes over this. Feel the fear, dread, and uncertainty. Think about "loving the bogeyman", the generic man of whom everyone is afraid, and who is everyone's target.
For those who think racism is dead in this country and everyone now gets the same fair shake, run your eyes over this. Feel the fear, dread, and uncertainty. Think about "loving the bogeyman", the generic man of whom everyone is afraid, and who is everyone's target.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Notes on my Friday... regarding CA Prop 8 and AZ Prop 102
This all started because a friend of mine wrote that an organization in which her dad's involved was a big supporter of CA Prop 8, aiming to constitutionally ban gay marriage and take away the marriages that have already been performed there. It's an interesting series of points about how fairly minute differences in state civics can make huge differences in how rights are protected in different states... in particular, the differences between states with "direct-democratic" principles like initiative, referendum, and recall, and states that adhere to the original representative frameworks. I've put it in temporal order for legibility's sake.
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Erika
Date: Oct 24, 2008 1:00 PM
Well, yeah, KofC is a Catholic organization. So... most of the big opponents are affiliated with religion in some way. Nothing helps a community like keeping non-traditional families weak, you know! It's gross. I spent a whole day the other day looking at all the people and organizations who've donated directly. You can look at it here:
http://www. latimes. com/news/local/la-moneymap,0,2198220. htmlstory
The good news is that in the last few weeks we've pulled even with them money-wise. The bad news is that a higher percentage of our support comes from outside CA, though that may not necessarily translate to fewer votes, it may be just weaker organization within CA. I fear that come election day I'll have a mixed bag and be so happy about President Obama and be so sad about this. It could still get shot down though... I really hope it does.
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: (my friend)
Date: Oct 24, 2008 5:40 PM
i guess i don't totally understand prop 8. i mean, isn't gay marriage legal in ca now? are they trying to reverse that? it's just crazy. i keep thinking about the non-traditional thing too... i want to propose a ban on gay marriage and add "and inter-racial "marriage," because the bible preaches slavery" to the bottom of it... then we can see how many people check their "values"
but anyway - it's good to see that the contributions are neck and neck even though there's all those corporate supporters. easy answer: stop recognizing marriage as a legal bond and they can keep marriage. i would rather have it legal though.
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Erika
Date: Oct 24, 2008 1:00 PM
Well, yeah, KofC is a Catholic organization. So... most of the big opponents are affiliated with religion in some way. Nothing helps a community like keeping non-traditional families weak, you know! It's gross. I spent a whole day the other day looking at all the people and organizations who've donated directly. You can look at it here:
http://www. latimes. com/news/local/la-moneymap,0,2198220. htmlstory
The good news is that in the last few weeks we've pulled even with them money-wise. The bad news is that a higher percentage of our support comes from outside CA, though that may not necessarily translate to fewer votes, it may be just weaker organization within CA. I fear that come election day I'll have a mixed bag and be so happy about President Obama and be so sad about this. It could still get shot down though... I really hope it does.
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: (my friend)
Date: Oct 24, 2008 5:40 PM
i guess i don't totally understand prop 8. i mean, isn't gay marriage legal in ca now? are they trying to reverse that? it's just crazy. i keep thinking about the non-traditional thing too... i want to propose a ban on gay marriage and add "and inter-racial "marriage," because the bible preaches slavery" to the bottom of it... then we can see how many people check their "values"
but anyway - it's good to see that the contributions are neck and neck even though there's all those corporate supporters. easy answer: stop recognizing marriage as a legal bond and they can keep marriage. i would rather have it legal though.
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Erika
Date: Oct 24, 2008 6:38 PM
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
I am really asking for your help.
I'm gonna be bothersome until I get some action... that sounds wrong. What I mean is that I know times are hard, but next time I see you I will personally buy you a beer or a magazine or a value meal or whatever your lousy five bucks would have gone to, if you'll just go to my fundraising page and donate it instead. It ain't about the benjamins, it's about the involvement. It will do you good. If you wanna donate more than five bucks that's good too.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
This is a really big deal, you guys.... CA voters are on the fence and following the money. We can't outspend the opposition but we can get some airtime and use it where it makes the most difference. It is so important to show the world that equal marriage doesn't break down traditional families, it just protects the rights of non-traditional ones.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
There are couples in CA who've been married three times now.... once "just for themselves", at a time when they thought they'd never be able to marry legally; once in 2004 when Gavin Newsom first legalized gay marriage in SF; and once this year, after the historic court decision that came from Mayor Newsom's act of courage. We have to make sure that these families finally retain this basic right, their own pursuit of happiness.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
One such couple was Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. A committed, loving couple since Valentine's Day 1953, Phyllis and Del were groundbreakers who dedicated their lives to each other and to activism. Mayor Newsom married them 51 years after they moved in together; they were first of the 2004 equal marriages. When the courts took that marriage away while the cases were tried, Phyllis said, "Del is 83 years old and I am 79. After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time."
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
When the California Supreme Court finalized its decision, Mayor Newsom asked these ladies to once again be the first to receive the endowments of legal marriage under the law. Graciously, though now 87 and 83, they accepted again and made their way to City Hall. They were married on June 16, 2008, under the eyes of God and man. Sadly, Del passed away on August 27, 2008, from complications of a fracture. Phyllis, her wife, was at her side, as she had been throughout their 55 years together.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
We should be so happy for them that, when Phyllis lost her partner, they were married under and protected by the law. We should be so horrified for them that a group of people claiming the mantle of God's authority would work so very hard, and spend so much money, to take that away from them. We should be driven to make sure that equal protection under the law is not taken away again. These are people's lives and families, this is for real. We have to help.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
This is a really big deal, you guys.... CA voters are on the fence and following the money. We can't outspend the opposition but we can get some airtime and use it where it makes the most difference. It is so important to show the world that equal marriage doesn't break down traditional families, it just protects the rights of non-traditional ones.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
There are couples in CA who've been married three times now.... once "just for themselves", at a time when they thought they'd never be able to marry legally; once in 2004 when Gavin Newsom first legalized gay marriage in SF; and once this year, after the historic court decision that came from Mayor Newsom's act of courage. We have to make sure that these families finally retain this basic right, their own pursuit of happiness.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
One such couple was Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. A committed, loving couple since Valentine's Day 1953, Phyllis and Del were groundbreakers who dedicated their lives to each other and to activism. Mayor Newsom married them 51 years after they moved in together; they were first of the 2004 equal marriages. When the courts took that marriage away while the cases were tried, Phyllis said, "Del is 83 years old and I am 79. After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time."
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
When the California Supreme Court finalized its decision, Mayor Newsom asked these ladies to once again be the first to receive the endowments of legal marriage under the law. Graciously, though now 87 and 83, they accepted again and made their way to City Hall. They were married on June 16, 2008, under the eyes of God and man. Sadly, Del passed away on August 27, 2008, from complications of a fracture. Phyllis, her wife, was at her side, as she had been throughout their 55 years together.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
We should be so happy for them that, when Phyllis lost her partner, they were married under and protected by the law. We should be so horrified for them that a group of people claiming the mantle of God's authority would work so very hard, and spend so much money, to take that away from them. We should be driven to make sure that equal protection under the law is not taken away again. These are people's lives and families, this is for real. We have to help.
http://www.actblue.com/page/erikaseven
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Equality for ALL in California
If you support the right of ALL loving couples to marry, please consider visiting my fundraising page for the group Equality for All. Any small donation will help this group buy ads to inform the public about the importance of voting NO ON PROP 8- the supporters of Prop 8 are currently outspending us many times over and it seems this has turned public opinion in their favor. Please help, any small contribution could make a huge difference!
Erika's fundraising page: Equality for all CA
Erika's fundraising page: Equality for all CA
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Setting it straight: John McCain on marriage equality
Senator John McCain has never been a staunch defender of marriage equality. However, he has managed to maintain the illusion that he is moderate on this issue and that he believes above all that it should be left to the states. I believe that he has achieved this primarily by opposing the Bush attempt to amend the US Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
However.... for anyone who is interested, he has taken the stance in individual state battles that their constitutions should be amended to define marriage thus. He has also opposed creation of domestic partner status on the record.
With regard to CA Proposition 8 on the ballot this year, McCain released the following statement:
"I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions."
This statement is a tad misleading, since the statute currently enshrined in AZ law is NOT an amendment to its constitution, but merely a part of its civil code, and it has since been the case in AZ law that equal marriage was not a legal possibility. In contrast, CA Prop 8 aims to do two things most distasteful to civil libertarians: it aims to amend the state constitution in order to discriminate against persons of a particular group, AND it aims to remove a civil right that has already been upheld by the CA courts.
Incidentally, and somewhat ironically, there is a similar measure (AZ Prop 102) on the ballot in McCain's home state of AZ this year, and he is not on record as having said anything whatsoever about it. However, in 2006 he actively campaigned in favor of AZ Prop 107, which would have not only amended the AZ constitution, but denied any kind of domestic-partner rights to gay AND straight unmarried couples!
Text of AZ Prop 107 from 2006, emphasis added by me:
To preserve and protect marriage in this state, only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage by this state or its political subdivisions and no legal status for unmarried persons shall be created or recognized by this state or its political subdivisions that is similar to that of marriage.
The following was his statement on this extremely harsh measure:
"I believe that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman, said Sen. McCain. The Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage in our state. I wholeheartedly support the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment and I hope that the voters in Arizona choose to support it as well."
---McCain in 2005, smiling placidly while holding a number of the actual petitions that ensured this measure made it onto the ballot. The woman beside him is the late Lynn Stanley, who was at that time the chair of Protect Marriage Arizona.
The broad language included in AZ Prop 107 is the sneaky kind that often slips past the electorate at large. The voters of Arizona are to be commended for taking notice of its nefarious intent and consequently being the first (and thus far only) American electoral population to turn away the gilded offer of a constitutional same-sex marriage ban. Unfortunately, the current AZ Prop 102 contains no such surreptitious language and I believe it will probably pass, despite the general distaste of many Arizonans for amending their state constitution on such frivolous grounds. Regardless, it surprised me at the time, and continues to surprise me, that McCain signed on to such a punitive measure. It leads me to a very narrow set of conclusions:
-Mayhap he did not read the very short measure that he was endorsing?
-Perhaps he did read it but the elusive language slipped his ostensibly well-trained legislative grasp?
-Or, worst of all, might it be that our esteemed Senator uses the cloak of federalism, of leaving marriage issues to the states, to disguise contempt for the notion of equal marriage as well as for the possibility of any other kind of approximated civil equality for same-sex couples?
Disturbing.
Even a righty like Palin pretended to be all about some forms of civil equality in the debate. She chose her words carefully enough, but that was certainly the position she aimed to convey. She's made it perfectly clear on the record herself that she's not really all that into domestic partnership and conferring the civil rights of marriage, but that's a whole other topic and should surprise no one at this point.
I promise that this won't be a one-note blog, as I have lots of other stuff to muse and rant about. It's just on my mind and I've heard so many people say that they think McCain is moderate, or hasn't weighed in, on this issue. He's officially in!
However.... for anyone who is interested, he has taken the stance in individual state battles that their constitutions should be amended to define marriage thus. He has also opposed creation of domestic partner status on the record.
With regard to CA Proposition 8 on the ballot this year, McCain released the following statement:
"I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions."
This statement is a tad misleading, since the statute currently enshrined in AZ law is NOT an amendment to its constitution, but merely a part of its civil code, and it has since been the case in AZ law that equal marriage was not a legal possibility. In contrast, CA Prop 8 aims to do two things most distasteful to civil libertarians: it aims to amend the state constitution in order to discriminate against persons of a particular group, AND it aims to remove a civil right that has already been upheld by the CA courts.
Incidentally, and somewhat ironically, there is a similar measure (AZ Prop 102) on the ballot in McCain's home state of AZ this year, and he is not on record as having said anything whatsoever about it. However, in 2006 he actively campaigned in favor of AZ Prop 107, which would have not only amended the AZ constitution, but denied any kind of domestic-partner rights to gay AND straight unmarried couples!
Text of AZ Prop 107 from 2006, emphasis added by me:
To preserve and protect marriage in this state, only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage by this state or its political subdivisions and no legal status for unmarried persons shall be created or recognized by this state or its political subdivisions that is similar to that of marriage.
The following was his statement on this extremely harsh measure:
"I believe that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman, said Sen. McCain. The Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage in our state. I wholeheartedly support the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment and I hope that the voters in Arizona choose to support it as well."
---McCain in 2005, smiling placidly while holding a number of the actual petitions that ensured this measure made it onto the ballot. The woman beside him is the late Lynn Stanley, who was at that time the chair of Protect Marriage Arizona.
The broad language included in AZ Prop 107 is the sneaky kind that often slips past the electorate at large. The voters of Arizona are to be commended for taking notice of its nefarious intent and consequently being the first (and thus far only) American electoral population to turn away the gilded offer of a constitutional same-sex marriage ban. Unfortunately, the current AZ Prop 102 contains no such surreptitious language and I believe it will probably pass, despite the general distaste of many Arizonans for amending their state constitution on such frivolous grounds. Regardless, it surprised me at the time, and continues to surprise me, that McCain signed on to such a punitive measure. It leads me to a very narrow set of conclusions:
-Mayhap he did not read the very short measure that he was endorsing?
-Perhaps he did read it but the elusive language slipped his ostensibly well-trained legislative grasp?
-Or, worst of all, might it be that our esteemed Senator uses the cloak of federalism, of leaving marriage issues to the states, to disguise contempt for the notion of equal marriage as well as for the possibility of any other kind of approximated civil equality for same-sex couples?
Disturbing.
Even a righty like Palin pretended to be all about some forms of civil equality in the debate. She chose her words carefully enough, but that was certainly the position she aimed to convey. She's made it perfectly clear on the record herself that she's not really all that into domestic partnership and conferring the civil rights of marriage, but that's a whole other topic and should surprise no one at this point.
I promise that this won't be a one-note blog, as I have lots of other stuff to muse and rant about. It's just on my mind and I've heard so many people say that they think McCain is moderate, or hasn't weighed in, on this issue. He's officially in!
One question on marriage equality
So.... I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as it's a subject near and dear to my heart. Also, recent legal happenings in Massachusetts and California have broadened the capacity of GLBT Americans to be legally bound to their same-sex partners. My question is this: if one is willing to put aside the causes of religious imperative and maintaining the status quo merely for its own sake, what sound argument remains for denying marriage rights to same sex-couples?
I first posed this question to a professor of mine at UCLA about three years ago, and his answer, uncharacteristically brief, was "None". Since then, I think I've asked the question scores of times, and most every time, the answer is as succinct and immediate as the one given me by my learned professor.
I have heard the suggestion that, due to the spread of STDs, regulating the sexual behavior of homosexuals is a public health issue. While that seems on its face a rather discriminatory idea, whispering as it does that gay sex is far more dirty and diseased than other varieties, I can accept the notion that sexual behavior, like many others, falls under the umbrella of public health concerns. What I can not understand is the insinuation that denying gay couples the ability to civilly solidify their monogamous relationships will somehow contribute to the improved health of the gay community or society as a whole. It stands to reason that reinforcing monogamous relationships of any sort could actually improve our public health scenario.
My assessment of a most common argument, namely that denying equal marriage is a valid means of protecting the family, is rather similar. Whose family, exactly, is protected by the civil instability of another family? This argument cannibalizes itself in the same fashion; one can easily deduce that denying equal marriage not only fails to protect the institution of family, but actively weakens it. This is particularly true when one considers a fact that equal marriage opponents would prefer to ignore - there are already hundreds of thousands of such families in existence whose ranks include children.
There are so many other arguments I could include here, but I won't because most of them are alarmist or irrational, like the notion that the government would force a religious official to perform a marriage against his or her will. So what else is there? What reasonable obstacle? We have a group of human beings clamoring for equality on several fronts, not just the front of marriage, and a Constitution designed to protect them. The arguments of religious or moral imperative and maintaining the status quo have no legal weight. So what is it precisely that prevents Americans, who tend to lay claim to the ideal of granting mankind "to each his own", from embracing the notion of same-sex civil marriage? Distaste? Awkwardness? Stubbornness?
I do not have the answer to this question, any more than I have gleaned the answer to the first. My elders assure me that the status quo may be slow to change with regard to civil rights, but that it will eventually change. In the meantime, I suppose it's up to us to continue asking these questions and to be grateful for every increment of progress.
I first posed this question to a professor of mine at UCLA about three years ago, and his answer, uncharacteristically brief, was "None". Since then, I think I've asked the question scores of times, and most every time, the answer is as succinct and immediate as the one given me by my learned professor.I have heard the suggestion that, due to the spread of STDs, regulating the sexual behavior of homosexuals is a public health issue. While that seems on its face a rather discriminatory idea, whispering as it does that gay sex is far more dirty and diseased than other varieties, I can accept the notion that sexual behavior, like many others, falls under the umbrella of public health concerns. What I can not understand is the insinuation that denying gay couples the ability to civilly solidify their monogamous relationships will somehow contribute to the improved health of the gay community or society as a whole. It stands to reason that reinforcing monogamous relationships of any sort could actually improve our public health scenario.
My assessment of a most common argument, namely that denying equal marriage is a valid means of protecting the family, is rather similar. Whose family, exactly, is protected by the civil instability of another family? This argument cannibalizes itself in the same fashion; one can easily deduce that denying equal marriage not only fails to protect the institution of family, but actively weakens it. This is particularly true when one considers a fact that equal marriage opponents would prefer to ignore - there are already hundreds of thousands of such families in existence whose ranks include children.
There are so many other arguments I could include here, but I won't because most of them are alarmist or irrational, like the notion that the government would force a religious official to perform a marriage against his or her will. So what else is there? What reasonable obstacle? We have a group of human beings clamoring for equality on several fronts, not just the front of marriage, and a Constitution designed to protect them. The arguments of religious or moral imperative and maintaining the status quo have no legal weight. So what is it precisely that prevents Americans, who tend to lay claim to the ideal of granting mankind "to each his own", from embracing the notion of same-sex civil marriage? Distaste? Awkwardness? Stubbornness?
I do not have the answer to this question, any more than I have gleaned the answer to the first. My elders assure me that the status quo may be slow to change with regard to civil rights, but that it will eventually change. In the meantime, I suppose it's up to us to continue asking these questions and to be grateful for every increment of progress.
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