An interesting gay marriage perspective
USA Today (a.k.a. McNews) published an op-ed today comparing laws preventing gays from getting married to laws preventing people from different races from getting married. The arguments are the same in both cases: they have biblical origins.
Let's pretend for a moment that laws preventing gays from getting married are not rooted in hatred; what is their basis? If it's biblical, then why are we not willing to grant same-sex couples any of the privileges afforded married heterosexual couples? The recent Ohio law barring gay marriage prevents homosexual couples from receiving any state benefits from marriage that are enjoyed by heterosexual couples. The proposed constitutional amendment -- now known as the Defense of Marriage Act -- would do the same on a federal level. Is there a legal basis for this denial of rights? Biblical arguments and discussions of "sanctity of marriage" get put down quickly by the Fourteenth Amendment. Our leaders would do well to remember that the law that governs this country is the constitution and not the Bible.
Okay, okay. Let's let the people opposed to same-sex marriage speak for themselves. How about Leadership University, which advertises itself as "a brochure site" whose mission is "to provide answers to many of science's, religion's and life's weightier issues free of charge. [They] are sponsored by Christian Leadership Ministries, a non-profit organization." That should tell us where they're coming from.
One of the "brochures" on this site is entitled "Same-Sex 'Marriage': Should America Allow 'Gay Rights' Activists to Cross The Last Cultural Frontier?" This "public policy analysis" first denigrates a movement for homosexual rights, making it out to be nothing more than an attempt at political power: "Certain gains awarded to 'minorities' in the decades following the 1964 Civil Rights Act's passage added important incentives to gay militants' aspirations to secure 'minority' status." Portions of this analysis hint that gay people are not so politically active so as to secure equal rights; rather, they want superlegal rights that are afforded to minorities, viz. "the ability to claim discrimination if a member or members of a minority class are denied access to employment, housing, public accommodations and/or public services." So, obviously, same-sex marriage is a political sham. Good job, guys.
Comments
If this whole thing were about "rights" it would be one thing, but upon review of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court ruling, and conversation with the lawyer who represented the plaintiffs, I find that hard to believe. The extent to which the campaign for gay marriage is taken, at least by some here in Bay State, amounts to a "we're here, we're queer, get used to it" attitude.
Let me clarify and restate that I'm talking about only a few people here -- not about the homosexual rights "agenda" as a whole. Of course gays deserve equal protection of the law and not to be discriminated against. I count myself among those who support gay rights -- but not at the expense of logic.
The first argument against the SJC ruling is that it represents judicial activism on par with Roe v. Wade, but this is obvious on the face of it, so let's ignore this for the moment.
The second argument against is that the court is, essentially, redefining marriage. While it's true that at one point in U.S. history, too few years ago, interracial marriage was prohibited, it was never true that Webster's defined marriage as 'a union between whites and whites, or blacks and blacks' -- although it DOES define marriage as a union between man and woman. The SJC ruling flies in the face of the English language.
Marriage is a man and a woman. To say otherwise is to pervert the English language. I have no problem with a civil union setup that confers *every single benefit* of marriage -- without calling it that.
If those who fought so hard for this ruling accepted civil unions as a workable solution, I would not be so uncomfortable. They don't, though. The lawyer in this case told me that civil unions would create 'second-class citizens' because they NEED the word marriage.
I don't buy it. Separate but equal was unequal because different facilities clearly meant degraded facilities for blacks and turned them into social pariahs (or, rather, reinforced their positions as social pariahs). Separate terms for different sorts of unions does nothing of the sort, any less than separate terms for 'father' and 'mother' makes either one less of a parent.
The extreme position, endorsed by the SJC on a slim 4-3 basis that has almost no popular support here, is a thumb in the nose to a heterosexual population that has become more and more amenable to civil unions in recent years (witness Vermont and the continuing discussion in other states -- and the fact that both, yes, BOTH major party candidates in 2000 voiced support for civil unions in the last presidential debates).
I take exception to the idea that the foregoing has been 'rooted in hate.' I find it hard to believe, though, that the sort who pushed for this extreme SJC finding had their black-and-white worldview rooted in anything but confrontation. --MB
Posted by: Taxachusetts | January 26, 2004 11:07 AM