Some ramblings on marriage
It seems that my current life is mainly revolving around being a gay rights activist (I never thought I'd say that about myself...) Last night, Screening Liberally had a screening of the movie Freeheld to discuss marriage equality, followed by a panel discussion (which included me, for my experience with the No On Proposition 8 campaign out in California.)
Yesterday also happens to be the day that Lambda Legal presented a case in Iowa for marriage equality, although the discussion centered a lot more on what happened in California and what was happening in New York. It's actually the first time since the election that the audience wasn't focused on finding someone to blame for what happened in California, but was more interested in what was currently happening.
Today, New Jersey's Civil Union Review Commission released their final report on the consequences of New Jersey's Civil Union Law. I haven't read through the whole report yet, but it basically strongly urges the state legislature to enact marriage equality, because civil unions aren't the same as marriage.
That's an interesting point, that's worth repeating and expanding on: civil unions, even in a state that defines them as being as equivalent as possible, still aren't the same thing as marriage. When partners are accompanying their spouses to the hospital, they are forced to explain their legal relationships rather than be their for their loved ones. Businesses don't offer benefits to civil union partners that they do to married couples (and can get away with this, because federal law gives them an out which can only be fixed by calling these relationships marriages.) And the situation causes psychological harm to gay youth, who are many times more likely to commit suicide, because they're getting the message that they don't deserve the same fundamental rights that their straight peers get.
That last part is particularly galling to me. When I realized I was gay (I was in denial for a long time) was one of the most depressing times of my life. And while I never felt that killing myself was a reasonable answer, I can see why people feel that way.
And that scares me.
So later last night, out with my out-of-town friends, when I was having a long in-depth conversation with a board member of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and was lamenting the fact that people in my generation are complacent because they don't know the history of the gay rights movement, he interrupted to say that at least gay youth weren't committing suicide any more. It bugs me that he seemed to think that this was a problem of the past, when it's something that still is an issue. Admittedly, he gave a good retort, asking if I supported the Trevor Project, which deals directly with these issues.
Comments
Gay Marriage as a profound issue
Hello,Last night I had a conversation with a friend about gay marriage. Now, I'm not gay myself, but many of my friends are. During the course of the conversation, I realized that what is at stake with the gay marriage issue is much bigger than just the rights of gays to be married or not. What is at stake is the separation of Church and State. I realized that our definition of "marriage" has been written into the legal code as "man and woman." This comes directly from the traditional marriage, as well as the kind of marriage sanctioned in the bible. Now, it occurs to me that any time you use your traditional values or religious beliefs (the Church) to inform a law (the State), you are in violation of the separation of Church and State. So, you may not support gay marriage in a religious, moral sense. But if you value the rights of all men, created equal, which our constitution clearly spells out, then you still must respect the rights of others in the public sphere. Simple, right?My friend with whom I was having this conversation is half African American. She doesn't believe in gay marriage. But she didn't seem to understand that it really doesn't matter what sh believes or not. Equal rights mean equal rights. The history of our country is all about equal rights. First it was the rights of men to create an independent nation. Then it was a fight over the rights of black people to be free. Then the fight over women to vote. Then the Civil Rights battle. Now it's time for the Gay Rights battle. It's all about separating Church and State. The test put before us at this moment is this: can we see beyond our own limited, religiously informed viewpoints, and create secular society based on equal rights? She kept saying, "I don't believe in it." Which "I" are you talking about? The one that is private, personal, religious - the Church? Or the one that is public, non-personal, secular - the State? If we cannot separate these two, many bad things can happen...The Salem Witch Trials.The Holocaust.Slavery.Many other things....Can we see that if we allow the whims of the majority to rule, we lose our framework of equal rights for all? Can't we see that when we don't respect the rights of all, we ourselves are in danger of losing our rights? What happens when a majority of people begin to think that a minority is the cause of the society's ills? The point I'm trying to make is simple. Believe whatever you want in your own time. But in the public sphere, if we truly support equal rights for all, that means for ALL. All persons, all couples. Marriage is in the legal code, but it is unequal. It doesn't fit in with the ideal of EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL. Are we that stupid, dumbed down, that we have lost this? Separation of Church and State!!! The issue is absolutely clear and simple. It doesn't matter what you believe - you've got a right to believe it. But the minute you impose your beliefs on someone else, you are infringing on another person's right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. This issue is at the cutting edge of the centuries old debate about separation of church and state. If we allow ourselves to impose our religious beliefs onto our legal code - God help us all!
Marriage as a civil right
Somehow I managed not to approve this message for publication despite the fact that I did read it a couple of months ago. (Oops.)
I'm personally inclined to agree with you, and I think that there are many people who are getting caught up on semantics here. There are a couple of terms that seem to have widespread disagreement: "marriage" and "civil rights".
Some people claim that "marriage" is defined by what our society has traditionally done. Unfortunately, many of them are unaware of situations in western history where same-sex relationships were consecrated (there are even examples of this in early Christianity that I wish I could cite references for, but I wasn't paying enough attention in my college class that discussed this to write down the book my professor recommended.) If one were to look at what the definition of marriage was at one point in history, it was essentially a transfer of property (the woman) from one party (her father) to another (her new husband). The argument that marriage is the primary way in which society encourages the nuclear family is tenuous at best, and clearly it's not doing a particularly good job.
I do agree that there's a freedom of religion issue here: any society that enforces the tenets of one religion while explicitly excluding the tenets of another is promoting one religion over others. As much as Christians claim that the US is a Christian nation (a claim that's at least somewhat debatable, given the difference between 18th and 20th century understandings of Christianity), the argument that the state should define marriage in a certain way because the Bible tells us so isn't compatible with the fact that there are religions who believe that their holy scriptures (which are sometimes the same Bible) compel them to recognize the relationships of committed same-sex couples as marriages.
So then we come to the issue of "civil rights." Just from the definitions of the words in that phrase, "civil rights" are rights that are conferred upon citizens by the state. This is as opposed to rights that are conferred by the fact that the holder of those rights is a human being ("human rights"). When arguing that marriage is a "civil rights" issue, it's an argument that the rights conveyed by the state to its citizens is what's important.
To connect the dots, in the US we have a strong feeling that discriminatory restrictions that are not strongly connected to a strong governmental interest are a violation of the principle of equality, and that our civil rights framework should be equal to all citizens. Courts have often upheld that discrimination against gay citizens doesn't support a strong governmental interest (rather than get into this argument here, check out the Iowa or California Supreme Court rulings on same sex marriage... They did a pretty thorough job of examining the question.)