Misunderstanding Marriage
When the California Supreme Court ruled that the California Constitution required the state to offer marriage to gay and lesbian couples, it did not take long for Jeff Jacoby to roll out his usual screed against gay marriage. The first part is the slippery slope that gay marriage will inevitably lead to.
In American law, certain conditions of marriage have always been nonnegotiable. A marriage joins (a) two people (b) of the opposite sex (c) who are not close relatives. Under that venerable definition, there can be no valid same-sex marriage, no polygamous or other plural marriage, and no incestuous marriage. But if the opposite-sex requirement is an unconstitutional infringement on the right to marry - which the California court explains as "the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with the person of one's choice" - then so are the restriction of marriage to two people and the ban on incestuous marriage. If two women who wish to marry each other must be permitted to do so, why not two sisters? Why not three?
This was the same argument that Jacoby made on 21 November 2003. And if gay marriage really were a slippery slope toward polygamy and incest, then one would expect that in the 54 months since the November 2003 decision in Massachusetts that there would be a groundswell of support for polygamous or incestuous marriages. One would think that if one's arguments relied on examples from the real world.
The second part of Jacoby's argument was also in his November 2003 column and in his 16 May 2004 column and his 22 May 2005 column as well. You see, the main purpose of marriage is procreation and gay and lesbian couples cannot procreate.
Men and women are not interchangeable, and same-sex unions—no matter how devoted and enduring—cannot take the place of a married husband and wife. The essential function of marriage is to unite male and female. That is the only kind of union that can produce new life, and therefore the only kind of union in which society has a survival stake.
Of course many gay and lesbian relationships are stable, loving, and happy. But since they cannot do what marriage can—bind men and women to each other and to the children that their sexual behavior may produce—they have never been regarded in the same light as marriage. Somehow, that crucial distinction eluded a majority of the California Supreme Court.
One might think that a responsible paper, one whose editors and owners considered it a paper of record, would encourage its columnists not to make such utterly risible arguments. But the Boston Globe is apparently trying to show that unfettered hackery is still worthy of a byline on the op-ed page.
First, many gay and lesbian couples get married in order that they may raise children, and often those children are the genetic offspring of one of the members of the couple. Every state in the union recognizes the benefit of encouraging a heterosexual spouse to raise the genetic offspring of his or her spouse. Why should it be different for homosexual couples.
Second, many gay and lesbian couples adopt children and raise them as their own. It would be tempting to ignore the fact that Jacoby did not mention that marriage protects adoptive children by providing them with two parents—but Jacoby's younger son Micah is himself adopted.
Finally, while procreation is certainly an activity that each state encourages in marriage, it is hardly a paramount concern of marriage. No state forbids the infertile from marrying, or limits marriage only to those who intend to have children. Menopause, advanced age, tubal ligation, vasectomies, irrational hatred of children, and even a complete lack of libido do not act as bars to matrimony. Jacoby ought to be smart enough to know this.
No, it is the ick factor that drives conservatives like Jacoby. They may talk about the joys of small government, but what they really want is a panopticon that will prevent their neighbors from deviating from the absolutely normal. Fortunately, modern societies are just a little ahead of the conservatives' time.
Labels: gay marriage, ick factor, Jeff Jecoby, utter hackery
One Step Forward
The Massachusetts legislature voted today, 151 to 45, to defeat a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriage. A 2003 state court decision had forced the state to allow same-sex couples to marry, and supports of the legislation failed to get the 50 votes in favor that they needed to send the amendment to the 2008 ballot.
One truly remarkable aspect of this decision is how it illustrates that political preferences change over time: the 151 votes to kill the amendment have not always been there: a parallel vote in the last legislative session garnered 62 votes in favor, and the legislative votes in the months after the original court decision showed bare majorities in favor of gay and lesbian rights. Politicians, pundits, and consultants who speak of triangulation and moderation miss the point—on issues, even deeply emotional ones, voters and legislators can and often are persuaded to change their opinions on issues.
Another remarkable aspect of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts has been the widespread realization among the electorate that same-sex marriage is something that does not harm those in traditional marriages—yes, there will be those who dress their homophobia in terms of "protecting traditional marriage," but for many straight voters, expanding the definition of marriage was something with no negative consequences. And politicians have noticed—despite a great deal of fuming by the right wing in Massachusetts in the last two years, not one opponent of the proposed amendment lost his or her legislative seat on 2006.
And that brings me to one of the disappointing aspects of the amendment process. A number of the proponents of the amendment were Democrats (several opponents, even early in the process, were Republicans who took civil liberties seriously). Take this profile in courage: Representative Donato from Medford. Donato claims that the people "have a right to vote" but somehow managed not to take that same line on a universal health care amendment that the legislature killed in January. Donato has already attracted one Democratic opponent for the 2008 primary, but there are 24 other Democratic representatives and 3 Democratic senators who voted to approve the amendment. In a sane world, the Green-Rainbow party would have as its primary 2008 campaign objective to get serious challengers to each of these 27 bad apples. In the real world, of course, the Greens are not much of a grassroots party at all: simply running in 27 races (out of 200) would be a manifold increase from what it has done in any recent election.
Labels: gay marriage, Green-Rainbow Party, victory
Separate and Quite Unequal
Why is gay marriage so important to some people? The easy answer is that every alternative to it, for gay couples, is so utterly lousy.
Nickie Brazier called UPS, where she is a driver, to add Heather Aurand to her health insurance the day after their Feb. 22 civil union in New Jersey, knowing it would save them $340 a month. But UPS said no. "They said it was because we’re not married," Ms. Brazier recalled.
Dr. Kevin Slavin was able to sign his partner up for the health plan at the hospital where he specializes in pediatric infectious diseases but soon learned that both men's benefits would be treated as taxable income—not the case for his married coworkers—and that his partner could not collect his pension if Dr. Slavin died.
Merissa Muench of Mount Olive, N.J., said her employer of seven years, a medical sterilization office where she is a technician, told her the company did not cover civil union partners.
"It just irks me that a guy they just hired, his wife—bing!—has health insurance," said Ms. Muench, 30, who declined to name her employer for fear of being fired. "What else does the gay American community have to do to prove that we're worth it just as much as you guys?"
Nearly two months after New Jersey became the third state to approve civil unions for same-sex couples, many are finding that all partnerships are not created equal, raising questions about whether the new arrangement adequately fulfills the promise of the State Supreme Court ruling that led to it.
Merissa Meunch just pointed out the utter absurdity of heterosexual privilege in American society. if encouraging marriage is so important that married couples ought to receive literally hundreds of special benefits, then those benefits ought to extend to gay and lesbian couples as well. Alas, too many Americans are content to treat gays and lesbians much worse than everyone else. Republicans have thrown their lot in with the Christian Reconstructionists who view homosexuality as somehow reprehensible; Democrats are too often too timid to point out the absurdity of encouraging only certain, God-approved, versions of families.
At least in Massachusetts, there is hope. In Massachusetts, the number of legislators who support gay marriage has increased from 50 members out of 200 to fully 141 out of 200. most of the difference has come from legislators changing their minds in the face of widespread evidence that same-sex marriage has been good for the state. And in New Hampshire, although the state legislature is unlikely to approve gay marriage anytime soon, an amendment to ban same-sex marriages went down to decisive defeat last month.
Labels: civil unions, gay marriage, heterosexual privilege
