Heartbreaking

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.

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:

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..

Posted by HassaN | November 12, 2008 11:40 AM

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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?

Posted by Scott | November 12, 2008 8:29 AM

@ 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?

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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. :)

>: / 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.

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!