Marriage vs. Civil Union

I originally posted this on the Legal Marriage Alliance of Washington mailing list on February 12, 2004, where someone asked “Other than the semantics of ‘marriage’ and ‘civil union’, what are the real differences?”  Mildly edited to current blog inclusion…

The difference is that the benefits, rights, and responsibilities of “marriage” are already defined and supported by case law.  “Civil union” is still a largely undefined term.

One of the proposed amendments to the Massachusetts constitution which was discarded in February, 2004 would have disallowed same-sex marriage but permitted civil unions, with the legislature being made to define such, and with the ability of the legislature to revisit that definition periodically.  In theory, the legislature could thus define “civil union” to be nothing at all (or at least nothing of value).

The only acceptable set of benefits, rights, and responsibilities to go into “civil unions” is those which go into “marriage”.  So then you are left with two choices: either say “Civil unions are granted all the benefits, rights, and responsibilities of marriages” or try to specify all of those benefits, rights, and responsibilities in great detail and have to revise that every time a new item comes up (and if you don’t revise, fight a lawsuit for every one of them).

In the end, you are left with either two terms which mean the same thing (in which case, why have two terms?) or one term which is said to be the equivalent of the other but falls short both in some known areas and some unknown areas, in which case it isn’t equivalent, and certainly isn’t equal.

What can you expect to lose?  Clarity, smoothness, and efficiency.  Will civil unions cover hospital visitation?  Inheritance?  Adoption?  Extra Chevron credit cards?  Attending company holiday parties?  Health care?  Corporate travel for spouses?  State income tax?  Federal?  Family seating at your partner’s daughter’s high school graduation?  Each and every benefit, right, or responsibility which is given blindly and unquestioned to married opposite sex couples, you may have to ask for and possibly demand.  You may have to show paperwork or ID cards.  Rules and regulations will have to be considered and rewritten by every company and government organization to include appropriate wording.  On the flip side, “married” means “married”, and all you’ll have to do is sigh every time someone has to do that mental adjustment about your spouse’s gender because they haven’t been hit with it a thousand times just yet.
 

Selection 2004/Gay Marriage: Pending Amendments

Hidden down at the bottom of a s CNN article (no longer available, try this summary), after all the stuff about the Republican Party convention platform calling for an amendment to ban same-sex civil marriage, is this little tidbit:

On abortion, the proposed platform again calls for a constitutional ban, asserting “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”

You got that?  The Religious Right now sees Constitutional amendments as the best way to forward their agenda.  (Yes, I’m aware that a call for an abortion amendment has been a staple of their platform for several elections, but this time it has company.)  They realize that the weight of law and court precedent is increasingly against them on the gay rights front, on abortion, on stem-cell research, on flag burning, and so on, and thus that their best (perhaps only) option is to do an end-run to where the courts can’t touch them.  (And then presumably stand there, going “Neener-neener!  We win!”)

You want a slippery slope?  This is it.  If any of these controversial amendments pass — just pass Congress, before they ever get to the states — there will be a rush to push all of them through the channel and burst the dam.

One of the primary purposes of the courts is to protect the individual and the minority against the rule of the majority.  This is the right wing’s method of imposing majority rule.

You want something that will destroy our civilization?  Don’t look at gay marriage.  Look at amendments which restrict the rights of minorities.

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Updated on August 31, 2004

Updated on March 31, 2011
 

Gay Marriage: Why Gays Get Married

Jonathan Rauch has an opinion piece on gay marriage in the online version of the New York Times.  (May require registration or paywall access; Troy points me to a no-registration version at Independent Gay Forum.)

There is an understated point in here that I find interesting: the idea that being gay and wanting to marry are orthogonal.  Okay, today, when we’re so wrapped up in the pending possibility, that doesn’t seem unusual (although some seem to fear that “married” will become the new gay norm, that those who are not coupled will be shunned).  But before/outside this current spate of marriage fever is a different matter.

We usually think of gays and lesbians who get married (in the straight manner, to people pof the same sex) as denying their orientation.  However, in an orthogonal world, it’s not so much denial as suppression.  For whatever reason, some men and women feel that being married is An Important Thing.  It is something they sincerely want to do/be.  And thus, in the name of achieving this goal, they put aside any same-sex orientation drive they may have and pursue the left turn at Albuquerque.

Of course, drives — sex, hunger, and I’ll propose a “sexual orientation drive” as something distinct from the traditional “sex drive” — can only be idled for so long, and eventually things break down and they have to be addressed.  Which has been the demise of many an opposite sex marriage where suppression has occurred.

So there’s one more reason to favor same-sex civil marriage: it may actually reduce the divorce rate, by allowing those with the need to pursue marriage to do so without the suppression of the sexual orientation drive which tends to tear such things apart.

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Updated on August 18, 2004

Updated on March 23, 2011
 

Gay Marriage: Talking Points

Stanley Kurtz has an opinion piece on gay marriage in the online version of the National Review.

I don’t agree with much of what he has to say, but one point comes out clear and accurate:

Gay marriage is an issue most people prefer to avoid.  The public may oppose gay marriage, but what it really wants is to avoid having to talk about it.

This parallels the well established scenario where people who are against gay rights (of any sort) tend to change (or at least soften) their stance when they have a family member, close friend, or co-worker come out.  Once they have a face to put with the situation, they tend to actually think about it, rather than going with their squicked gut reaction.

That is undoubtedly true for the same-sex civil marriage side of things, too.  The arguments against it start (and pretty much end) with “It’s wrong!!!”  Once people are forced (er, encouraged) to actually think about the issue (if you can get them to think rather than preach), if you can put a face on it, then you’ll find them at least softening their stance.  (The first sign of that being “Well, I guess civil unions might be okay.”)

People are sheep: they want to be herded from one field to the next.  People are metaphoric ostriches, sticking their heads in the sand.  They will pointedly ignore the truth of an issue in favor of repeating other people’s rhetoric.  The best cure for this is personal activism — “Being out is more important than coming out” — so you need to do what you can to make those around you aware that same-sex couples are here, are queer, and deserve the rights, benefits, and responsibilities which every other loving couple gets in our society.

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Updated on March 15, 2011
 

Gay Marriage: Rotten to the Core

In his July 10 radio broadcast (transcription no longer available), President Bush referred to courts defining marriage as a “mere legal contract.”

From a legal, governmental, secular standpoint, that is exactly what marriage is.  The United States government does not and may not recognize a religious aspect of marriage and instead wraps contract law around and through marriage, pointedly ignoring (but allowing) any religious aspects.

Or at least that’s how law sees it, from an agnostic point of view.  (Note: not atheistic, which would be “There is no God,” but agnostic, “God isn’t required.”  There is a difference.)  Religionists like Bush, however, (claim to) look from the inside out: they see marriage as a religious rite, and the legal contracts as stuff wrapped around the outside.

This is then the crux of the issue: is marriage the religious rite in the center, and the other stuff is just fluff?  Or is marriage the legal contracts, and the religious stuff is an optional piece?  (Picture a toy car given as a birthday present, perhaps: the toy won’t run without the batteries, but the batteries aren’t much fun without the toy.  Of course, the toy car can probably be pushed around and played with to some degree sans batteries.)

As observed on this site, outside of Christian terms, marriage is merely such a contract, a means of establishing whose woman (and children, and associated property) is whose.  Out of that has grown all the other legal incidents involving inheritance and taxes and “in sickness and in health”.

I’m not going to say who is right and who is wrong — that’s a question unanswerable by anyone but God, and He ain’t talking.  But clearly if you don’t accept the religious rite as a required core, then marriage is probably the other stuff.

But if the religionists do manage to push through the Federal Marriage Amendment, or something similar to it, it’s worth considering whether this is merely the first step on a proverbial “slippery slope”.  Once they have had one success in codifying their religious beliefs (note: not religious beliefs in general, since some religions are not opposed to same-sex marriage, even as a religious rite; with the toy example above, you can buy whatever brand of batteries you want) into law this way, the next step becomes easier: tying marriage to the religious right (er, to the religious rite).  Not requiring people to be married, but restricting the benefits and legal incidents of marriage to those who are married.  And then defining “married” as requiring the religious rite.  And then defining just what that religious rite is.

In other words, once they can define marriage as being one man and one woman, they can start to work at it having other limits (in order to make it conform to tradition, of course; to their tradition).  They can disallow marriages done in non-approved (non-religious) ways, including Justice of the Peace, Common Law, shipboard, and of course by mayors and other political persons.  And from there, it’s a simple hop to stripping rights from existing marriages of those sorts.

The FMA isn’t about protecting marriage.  It’s about restricting it, reserving it to only those who the religionists deem worthy.  Disallowing same-sex couples is only the first step.  (Make that the third step: they already kicked out groups other than couples, and they used to have limits regarding race, but lost ground on that.  Perhaps only temporarily, in their view.)

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Updated on March 10, 2011
 

Gay Marriage: Change Begins at Work (Conclusion)

Back in March, I wrote (in “Gay Marriage: Change Begins at Work”) about our company’s gay and lesbian employee group’s effort to get our Domestic Partner Benefits requirements changed, updating them to account for today’s domestic partner registrations, civil unions, and legal same-sex civil marriages.

This had been the text from our benefits book:

Domestic Partner Coverage

Adobe extends coverage under Personal Selections (PS) to qualified domestic partners, same and opposite sex, and their eligible dependent child(ren).  Domestic partner coverage applies to the coverages—medical, dental, vision, dependent life insurance and long-term care—in which spouses and children may be enrolled.

To be eligible for domestic partner coverage:

• You and your partner must be at least 18 years of age.
• You must be in a committed, exclusive relationship.
• You must have lived together for at least 12 months.
• You must be jointly responsible for living expenses.
• Your domestic partner’s child(ren) must satisfy the same criteria applied to an employee’s child(ren).  (See “Who Is Eligible” earlier in this section.)

Roommates and relatives are not considered domestic partners.  You must also wait 12 months before re-enrolling a different domestic partner.  If you are in a domestic partnership and your 12-month anniversary falls at a time outside of the Open Enrollment period, this will be treated as a qualified change in status, and you may apply for domestic partner coverage at that time.

I’m pleased to say that, after diligent research, Human Resources has agreed to the bulk of our requests on the subject.  (Aside: There was an article in The Advocate in March (online archives only go back to 2008 currently, so no link to the article) indicating that some companies were making changes like this, but without naming any of them.  Well, here’s one to be named!)

Here is the text (effective July 1, 2004 ) to be incorporated into the next printing:

Domestic Partner Coverage

Throughout the year, Adobe periodically reviews our benefit plans and policies.  Due to our review and recent legislation, the following changes have been made to our Domestic Partner policy:

• Official government registration of an employee’s domestic partnership can be submitted in lieu of Adobe’s Domestic Partner Declaration (Affidavit).

Domestic partner eligibility requirements

An employee and their domestic partner must be:

• At least 18 years of age
• In a committed, exclusive relationship AND
• Jointly responsible for living expenses.
• A domestic partner’s child(ren) must satisfy the same eligibility criteria applied to the child(ren) of an employee.

A domestic partner relationship must:

• Exist for at least 12 consecutive months AND during this time, maintain the same principal residence with the intent to do so indefinitely.

OR

• The domestic partner relationship must be recorded, certified, and/or registered by a national, state, city or regional U.S. government authority.

That is, whether or not they have lived together for 12 months, the presence of a government-recognized and registered relationship is sufficient for Adobe Systems to accept that it is a genuine domestic partnership.

There are two things which they did not approve:

• Payment for the benefits of the domestic partner come out of post-tax dollars, while that for married opposite-sex spouses come from pre-tax dollars and may cost less.  This is not something Adobe Systems has control over; it is dictated by the Federal Government and insurers.
• This policy change only affects United States employees whose partnerships are registered in the United States.  Adobe has other policies for its employees in Canada, the Netherlands, and other countries where same-sex marriage laws are different.  In particular, though, U.S. employees who marry in Canada but do not otherwise have a registered partnership in the United States are not covered.

There is also one impact that I note for which we didn’t request a change:

• Same-sex partners must share living expenses, which implies the earlier requirement to live together as well.  It is unclear how this would affect a couple for which one partner had to live in another city for an extended period due to his or her job (or military service) and was unable to contribute to the living expenses, for example.  For opposite-sex married couples, there is no requirement for shared living expenses or cohabitation; technically, the two never have to see one another again after marrying.

I suppose someone may request an examination of that requirement at some point, although I am personally not too worried about it.  I believe that Adobe would do the right thing by a couple separated for job or related reasons.  There are few couples (same or opposite sex) who would fall into the last class above, and I would be more apt to fight to prevent opposite-sex couples from receiving benefits in such a case than to secure them for same-sex couples.

In all, a very favorable resolution to this issue that I spearheaded.

What’s that?  Will it actually affect any employees?  You bet it will.  One of the female employees has already spoken up to say that it will.  But even more, my partner Rusty currently has no health insurance.  We are still waiting for his divorce from his ex-wife to finalize (it’s been in process since before we met!), but once that happens, we will register our partnership with King County and be able to have him (and his daughter Sarah, who also lives with us during the school year) covered, hopefully by Labor Day, several months before the old policy would have enabled such coverage to start.
 

Gay Marriage: The Day After

Well, it’s May 18 — one day after legal same-sex marriage started up in Massachusetts — and civilization as we know it hasn’t ended.  (At least I don’t think it has.  It’s a slow day at work today, so you never know.  Could be a Sign of the End Times.  And I think the NASDAQ is up again, too, which can’t be good.)

So how long do we have to wait for the world to grind to a halt?  The validity of Newsom’s bid to open up marriage in California comes up in court later this spring.  Whether Oregon can resume its marriages has a 90-day limit expiring in July.  There are requests to fast-track the Washington lawsuits.

Or maybe we have to wait until the end of 2006, when Massachusetts voters get to say yay or nay about a Constitutional amendment, after they’ve had the chance to the see 18 months of societal chaos cause by same-sex civil marriages rip their state apart.  (Uh-huh.  Whatever.)  That assumes, of course, that the 2005 legislature reconfirms the amendment, rather than sending it back to start in a giant game of Sorry!

Today (May 18) is also the 24th anniversary of Mt. St. Helens blowing its stack.  Nary a rumble there.

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Updated on January 28, 2011
 

Gay Marriage: Choose Your Words Carefully

One of the surprising side-effects of the push for same-sex civil marriage that I’ve found is a revision of the words I have to (or am willing to) use about same-sex relationships.

As I wrote in “Letter of Comment — Spousal Equivalent” on January 21 (and expanded further here), there has long been a list of terms that people would apply to their same-sex relationships: roommate, boyfriend/girlfriend, lover, partner, life partner, longterm companion, fuck buddy, daddy, boy, master, slave, sugar daddy, mate, soulmate, chew toy,…

In particular, we (the gay community) would often in the past use “husband” or “wife” to describe a partner.  Sometimes this was quite serious, with couples who had lived together in a “marriage-like” relationship for several years, possibly including a commitment ceremony and an exchange of rings.  Often, though, this was used as (ironic?) shorthand for a gay or lesbian person’s “boyfriend / girlfriend / lover / partner / whatever he or she is”, so long as it was perceived to be a serious, ongoing relationship.  Except for those who had had actually religious ceremonies, the use of the term was not accurate (and even when accurate, was not “legal”).

Now, though, we have people who hold actual marriage licenses from various jurisdictions, making the use of “husband” or “wife” fully accurate and, to varying degrees in varying places (and hopefully soon less varying and in more places), legal as well.

This makes the use of the terms in non-accurate scenarios distasteful to me.  We are not married, so Rusty is not my “husband”.  I’m not sure what term we should use — we’ve been dating each other exclusively for almost eleven months, using the “L” word (no relation to the TV show) for much of that, and living together for three, including my acting as a step-parent for his teenage daughter — but we’re not married, and we haven’t really discussed getting married beyond that we aren’t ready to do so yet.

If we (as a community) are going to value the actions of same-sex couples who have taken the marriage leap, treating them like the pioneers they are, then I think we have to consciously avoid ironic and joking casual uses of the terms in order to avoid lessening those other relationships.

(Of course, intentional ironic and joking uses are another matter.)

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Updated on January 3, 2011
 

Gay Marriage: Change Begins at Work

The software company I work for [Adobe Systems] was one of the early adopters of domestic partner benefits for its employees, back in 1994 or so.  (Although it probably brought them in because of acquiring a smaller company which already had them at the time [Aldus], rather than generating them independently.)

However, the world has moved on, and while the benefits are still available, the means of securing them is rather dated in today’s world.

Our Domestic Partners policy is fairly standard for what was being instituted by high tech companies in the early 1990s.  The usual line of thought was that, for couples who were not married, there had to be a solid indication of a dedicated, intimate relationship.  (This was for either same sex or opposite sex couples, as there could be reasons for the latter to need to secure some benefits for their partners without being married.  A few companies explicitly limited their benefits only to opposite-sex couples, though.)  They didn’t want to be giving any random twosome the benefits, since the intent was to provide some of the benefits of marriage for those who couldn’t (for whatever reason) get married.

As such, couples were required to apply for the benefits and fulfill a raft of requirements, including living together, sharing expenses jointly, and doing so for a full 12 months prior to getting the benefits, and waiting a similar 12-month period before listing a new domestic partner in the event of dissolving the first partnership.  While a bit unwieldy, this did seem to prove a dedication; no one would be platonically moving in with their buddy who worked for a high-tech company and getting benefits the next week.

(On some level, this was AIDS-phobia related.  AIDS drugs were God-awful expensive at the time, and one of the underlying fears was that someone would take on a dying buddy — not a genuine lover/partner, but just a friend — who had no health care and would build up big health care costs to be defrayed by the company, and possibly that they might do this repeatedly, sequentially with multiple people.  And you know, much though we’d like to pretend otherwise, there are certainly people who would have used the system in just this way if they could have.)

Of course, these same hurdles were not present for opposite-sex married couples.  They don’t have to “apply” for the benefits; they just have to announce that they now have a husband or wife (fill out a “change of status” form), and the coverage is automatic.  They don’t have a one-year waiting period; they can be married on Sunday and be covered on Monday, then divorce on Tuesday and remarry on Wednesday, getting immediate coverage for the new spouse.  They don’t even have to live together or even see one another again after the marriage.  And if they want, they can marry someone simply to secure health benefits for them; no one can say “boo” about it.  (Not that any of this happens regularly, but it certainly could.)

The gay and lesbian employees never made too much of a fuss about this, since (a) we were getting some benefits rather than none (and some more than we used to get) and (b) since we couldn’t get married, our relationships didn’t have to be treated like a marriage.  Second-class citizenship was better than no citizenship at all.

Today, the world has moved on.  Employees of our company can register their domestic partnerships with King County (Seattle, where we have a major office), the state of California (where we have a major office in San Jose), and other state and local governments around the country.  They can get a Civil Union in Vermont.  They can get a legal marriage in British Columbia and Ontario (where we have a major office), or the Netherlands (where we have an office) and other European countries.  They will, come May 17, presumably be able to get legally married in Massachusetts (where we have an office), and they are getting married (with as yet questionable legality) in San Francisco and Portland and New Mexico and New York.

Members of our gay and lesbian employees group (I’m on the committee) are working with representatives of our Human Resources organization (and we started doing so last November, before any of the 2004 hullabaloo started) to get our company’s policy changed.  We want the company to treat our employees who have taken the step of formalizing their relationships (registered domestic partnership, civil unions, or marriages recognized in local jurisdictions if not throughout the United States) to not have to go through extra hurdles in getting their benefits from the company.  No need to apply for the benefits, just state the partner’s name on the same form as for opposite-sex marriage changes.  No need for a waiting period if the partnership has been legal registered by a government authority.  (Note that most couples who take that registration step will likely have already achieved the 12-month period, or at least will be close to it.  Very few will try to scam the system, and the policy can be crafted/tweaked later to weed out and punish those individuals without creating hurdles for the honest employees.)

We have a certain amount of hope that we will succeed in this endeavor, although the standard behavior of the company (of any company, really) tends to be “aggressively neutral” at best, not wanting to either lead or trail the pack in controversial arenas.  We’ve already had a couple meetings with HR where they were quite willing to listen to our desires.  We’ve identified several couples within the company who have registered partnerships, civil unions, or marriages in either Canada or San Francisco.  And now both San Jose and Seattle (where the company’s two largest offices are located) are moving to recognize such same-sex civil marriages for their city employees and general residents, which will give extra leverage to get the company to do likewise.

In summary: don’t forget about the benefits, rights, and responsibilities that you may currently have.  Make sure that they stay up to date with society.

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Updated on January 5, 2011

We eventually got the bulk of what we were requesting: recognition by the company of governmental registration and the ability to use it to secure Domestic Partner benefits in lieu of the various other “proof” required.

One notable thing we asked for which didn't get approved was recognition of international same-sex marriages, such that a married Canadian couple moving to the United States would have their marriage treated as a full-fledged marriage for company insurance.  But this was a limitation of what the US-based insurance companies would be willing to do rather than what the company was willing to do, so such a couple could only be covered in the United States as Domestic Partners (until foreign same-sex marriages are properly recognized, of course).

Gay Marriage: Unanswerable Questions

On the radio this morning, talking to same-sex civil marriage supporters, talk jock Rusty Humphries claimed he was trying to take emotion out of the question and was just trying to ask questions that the people he was talking to could not answer.  (Of course, what he was really trying to do was to force them to answer questions based on emotion, at which point he could either goad them into raving or just hang up on them.  That's how most talk radio works.)

The tables got turned at one point, though.

He was using the tack about marriage being for raising kids.  The person on the phone commented that gay and lesbian couples could raise kids as well.  Rusty declared that this was different, because those weren’t their kids, that they weren’t from a mixture of the two parents’ DNA.  The caller then pushed to the divorce matter: what about those kids who come from a family where the natural parents are married, and then the couple gets divorced, and then remarries, such that the people raising the kids aren’t both of the natural parents?  This is treated as perfectly acceptable in our society.  How is it then horribly different when the people raising the kids are the same sex, with perhaps only one being the natural parent?

No response from the right winger, just a quick change to a new question.  Couldn’t answer the question without emotion, I guess.  Point, our side.

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Updated on March 9, 2004

Updated on Decemeber 29, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: The Brass Ring

Why is same-sex civil marriage so important?  Why this, why now?

Because it’s the “brass ring.”

(History Lesson: Old-time carousels would have a contraption where people sitting on the outside ring of horses could reach out and try to snag a ring.  Most were iron [or whatever], but a few were brass.  Grab a brass ring and you got to ride again for free.  The last time I was in Santa Cruz, the carousel at the Beach Boardwalk there had such a “ring grabber,” and you were then supposed to toss the ring at a target.  I think you got a free ride if you hit the target, or something like that.)

In this case, the civil marriage is (rightly) seen as the thing that will wipe away all other questions about same-sex civil rights.  How can you rationalize disallowing adoption to a legitimately married couple?  How can a health plan not cover a person’s legal spouse?  How can the military kick out someone who is in a legally-recognized same-sex relationship unless their actual actions are contrary to military discipline?

Given this big right, lots of other things come automatically, and the things that don’t become way harder to defend the restrictions on.

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Added link on December 27, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: Excuses, Excuses

It can be fun listening to conservative talk radio with their coverage of the same-sex civil marriage hoo-hah (or “sodomite matrimony,” if you prefer; that was the term used in late February when Les Kinsolving filled in for Rusty Humphries on his national radio show) that’s been going on the past three weeks.  In and among the more standard “reasons” (excuses) why we can’t allow same-sex civil marriages — morality, tradition, kids, etc. — there are a few which are just way out there.  As best as I can figure, these people have thought about the question just enough to realize that reasons based squarely on religious grounds won’t fly when it comes to the courts, so they flail around for something, anything else to use as a club in place of the Bible.

And what they find is “benefits”.  One of the leading arguments for why same-sex civil marriage is needed is that along with marriage comes a whole slew of government and business supplied benefits.  Not just rights like hospital visitation and adoption, but things like joint filing of tax returns.  Many (but not all) of these can be acquired by filing assorted powers of attorney, wills, and other documents (or by working for gay-supportive companies), but often only at a cost of thousands of dollars and the possibility of having to fight for them when needed, problems that married couples simply don’t face.

Favorite Excuse #1: Gay couples want to ensure health benefits for their spouses, and since gays and lesbians are known health risks, this will be expensive.

Sidestepping the underlying jab that all gay men are presumed to be have (or will automatically get) AIDS, have you ever looked into the costs of having a child?  Not just birthing it, but all the health costs throughout the kid’s life?  Woo whee!  We could save a bundle on health expenses by not subsidizing population expansion.  Like that will happen.

Favorite Excuse #2: Married gay couples will be eligible for Social Security survivor benefits if one of them should die, and that would cause an added drain on our already strapped Social Security program.

If this is such a concern, then maybe we should just put a stake in the ground now and disallow that benefit for all future marriages.  Only ones performed before this date will be eligible.

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Updated on March 9, 2004

Updated on April 23, 2004

Favorite Excuse #3: From an April 21st letter to the editor in the Seattle Times, authored by Scott Wall:

Those who are seeking to legalize same-sex marriage are not taking into account all the ramifications.  For example, if a citizen marries a non-citizen, the non-citizen then becomes naturalized.  Do we want all sorts of men marrying and pretending to marry other men in order to sidestep the naturalization process?”

I want the same chance to have someone I love (or even just pretend to love) to sidestep the naturalization process as Mr. Wall gets, to marry (or pretend to marry) any random foreign woman.  What’s good for the gander should be good for the gay goose.  If this citizenship issue is such a major concern, Mr. Wall is surely making the appropriate appeals to get such naturalization policies changed, right?  Right?

Updated on December 22, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: The West Coast

The situations in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle are quite different, despite the political similarities between the cities.

In San Francisco, we have a city with probably the most significant gay population in the country, and a politically active one, to boot.  During election season, San Francisco candidates come to the leather bar beer bust on Sunday afternoon to address their constituents!  We also have a case where the city’s mayor and the the county executive are one and the same, so the mayor could make the order.  Mayor Newsom is aware that the various DOMA laws are probably unconstitutional, but that the courts won’t hear challenges to them unless the laws are having an impact; that is, until there are same-sex marriages done locally or by other states, the laws don’t do anything but sit and menace.  By pushing gay marriages forward – and in the sort of extreme volume only San Francisco can generate – he forces the question.  In the end, as he has said, this may severely damage his political career.  But he will have eternally made himself a hero for some portions of the populace, and if he succeeds, he’ll have also made his political career.

With Portland, there is no state DOMA law to interfere, and clear prohibitions against discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.  Further, the state’s marriage laws specify age requirements for males and females engaging in marriage, but do not specify one and only one of each.  This has left the door open for the issuing of same-sex marriage licenses, with only the incentive of San Francisco and Massachusetts needed to kick things off.  (Indeed, the ball started rolling in Oregon before San Francisco started issuing licenses.)  Oregon thus ends up in the same class as Massachusetts, and the actions will probably result in both a trip to the state Supreme Court and an attempt to amend the state Constitution, but with the added kick that this is right now just a single county issuing the licenses, but also the most populous county, which could set off a string of lawsuits against other counties in the state if they don’t follow Multnomah County’s lead.  (Oregon is also peculiar in that its population density is such that Multnomah and Lane counties — Portland and Eugene — rule the roost.  Anti-gay initiatives in that state failed when every county except those two voted for them.  Amending the state Constitution is apt to be equally as difficult.)

In Seattle, we have a nicely liberal populace — heck, Kucinich scored delegates here.  But we also have a DOMA law.  Seattle’s mayor, Greg Nickels, has already passed the marriage buck to the county, and county executive Ron Sims has proven unwilling to take the Newsom route.  This isn’t because Sims isn’t friendly to the gay community, but because he’s very aware of the potential damage to his political career.  See, Sims is running for governor this year, and Washington’s population, while weighted toward the west side of the Cascades, isn’t as imbalanced as Oregon’s: he has to be aware of the more conservative Eastern Washington and what advocating for same-sex civil marriage could do to his support from that part of the state.  (I can’t blame him, frankly.  He’ll be of more value to our community as governor for the next four years than if he pushes on this issue and loses because of it.  I’d like to get supportive wording from him in the process, though.)

Oregon has one more interesting side angle to it: they have a state income tax.  The IRS has apparently declared that they will not recognize same-sex civil marriages for purposes of couples filing jointly, presumably under the federal DOMA law.  If Oregon accepts such marriages and state income tax filings, there is then a basis to issue a court challenge to the federal DOMA law.

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Updated on March 9, 2004

Since writing this, I’ve been told that the IRS says they will recognize based on what each state does.

Updated on December 20, 2010

Newsom’s order to do same-sex marriages in San Francisco was blocked by the state Supreme Court shortly after this was originally written, and his “Whether you like it or not” comment on the inevitability of same-sex marriage was used in pro-Proposition 8 campaign materials to help the amendment win.  On the flip side for his political career, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of California in November 2010.

A DOMA law was approved for Oregon in November, 2004.  In 2008, statewide domestic partner registration went into effect.

An attempt was made to overturn Washinton’s DOMA law through the courts, but the state Supreme Court rejected it (on the specious “marriage is for procreation” grounds being used to defend Proposition 8), saying that the people or the legislature need to do the overturn.  The state legislature has subsequently passed numerous domestic partner rights changes, to the point that Washington now has “everything but the word marriage”.

Gay Marriage: The Final Nail

The CNN story on Bush’s formal call for an anti-same sex civil marriage amendment to the United States is here.

If that doesn’t hammer a stake through the heart of the “Compassionate Conservative” vampire, nothing will.

As with everything Bush does this year, the act is politically motivated, of course.  Constitutional amendments don’t get passed overnight.  They take months.  This ensures that a divisive, middle America-squicking issue is in front of the voters all year long, but the actual voting fallout of it won’t occur until after this November.

This is designed, as much as anything, to force Kerry (or possibly Edwards) to take up a contrary stance.  This may well backfire on Bush and company.  Initially, it has a polarizing effect and may push some people into the Conservative camp.  But it is well established that the more gay people someone knows, the less severe their reactions toward gays tend to be, and by extension, the more someone knows about a subject, the better they can make a choice.  And thus, the more this issue is out in the public eye, the more people will be forced to confront their internal biases.  People who are already heavily against it will stay that way, but others are vastly more likely to shift their opinions to be in favor of same-sex civil marriages as they learn and think more about the issue.

So to quote our fine President: “Bring it on.”
 

Gay Marriage: Do It for the Kids

One of the classic and recurring arguments for limiting marriage to only a man and a woman is that marriage is expressly for the raising of children.  And thus because one male and one female parent (the original parents, we should specify) are the ideal, marriage must be limited to such a pair in order to give children the best chance possible.

I’m fine with that.

(Indeed, I would say that the best of all parenting option is the child’s original father and mother, assuming they love the child and work for the child’s best interests and all those other things that are part of the “ideal” but may not happen in all cases.  But in those myriad cases where it doesn’t happen in the “ideal” way, alternatives such as parenting by a single parent, or by one original and one step-parent, or by a same-sex couple where one is an original parent, or even by some random couple from an overseas country who genuinely wants the child may be quite an excellent parenting situation.  But I digress…)

As I said, I’m fine with focusing marriage on the child-rearing matter.  So long as it is applied fully and fairly across the board. So here’s a (modest) proposal:

• The institution of marriage shall be limited to one man and one woman, expressly for the purpose of raising children.
   
• Any marriage which is childless for two years shall automatically be dissolved, with the separation of joint assets defined per each state’s legislature.
   
• “Childless” shall mean the absence of a child in the household between conception and the age of majority.  The child’s permanent residence must be that of the couple more than half of each year.
   
• Marriage with the intention or expectation of remaining childless shall constitute fraud.

In other word, by getting “married”, the couple commits to the duty of raising children.  Couples must present proof of pregnancy or the presence of a child in the home more than half the time within two years of their ceremony to remain married.  Couples who do not currently have children under the age of majority in the home have two years to again become pregnant or otherwise acquire a child.  (Acquiring a child may include step-parenting, adoption, being a foster parent, or raising grandchildren whom your children cannot raise themselves, and possibly other methods.)

Among other things, this means infertile couples may not be married (or at least may not stay married once they know this status, and infertile individuals may not become married in the future), couples may not marry with the intention of remaining childless, and after the kids turn 21, the marriage duties are concluded and the marriage must be dissolved.  Nobody gets a “pass” because they are physically incapable of having kids (including due to injury, illness, or age), and no one gets a free ride because they raised kids in the past; if you aren’t doing it now, you don’t get the benefits.

I’m sure that proposal would go over real well.

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Updated on December 14, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: The Race to be Different

From The Advocate’s interview with Presidential candidate General Wesley Clark, dated February 3 (the link is just to an excerpt of the interview):

But in the past, when the country was struggling with whether or not to allow people of different races to marry each other, for example, there wasn’t a question of calling it something other that marriage.

The way Colin Powell said it is that it’s like the decision President Truman made [to desegregate the military] and the decision that he was asked to make [to allow gay people to serve openly].  He said that there is something fundamentally different with sexual orientation.  I’m not sure that’s correct.  I’ll start with the legal rights.  Let’s let convention take its course as it works through.

So, is Powell correct?  Is there something fundamentally different between the “blacks in the military” and the “gays in the military” questions?  After some thought, I’m willing to say that yes, there is.

(What I recall Powell saying, several years ago, was that he saw no comparison whatsoever between the two issues.  Not just different but completely different.  At the time, I thought this was the typical “the Civil Rights struggle is a black thing, the rest of you go away” response, not unlike how the Holocaust has come to about Jews and only about Jews.  Today, I think that it is more like the way that only someone “inside” the gay side of things has the ability to see through the “gay window”, and thus we see the underlying similarities strongly while those “outside” focus on the surface comparisons, or on what their own “windows” focus on; this encompasses my earlier opinion, but broadens it.)

The difference seen by those outside the gay community is external vs. internal.  For black soldiers, you could clearly point to some soldiers and say “They may serve” and to others and say “They may not.”  You could thus also target the concerns about troop morale and soldiers working together and such, mostly with a “Just get over it” response.  Underlying the concern with gays in the military is that you (generally) can’t point out the gay soldiers from a distance; you have to get to know them first, and thus your first impressions may get twisted later.

Which isn’t to say that a “fundamental difference” is a good enough reason to bar the soldiers serving together, or the gay ones from serving at all.  After all, you can’t (generally) tell at first glance that someone is Jewish, or left-handed, or any number of other traits which might only become evident later.  It’s really the “squick factor” that is the problem, magnified by the fact that it may not be apparent early on.

So now back to the comparison of mixed-race marriages to same-sex ones.  Is there a similar “fundamental difference” there?  There isn’t along the external vs. internal/visual axis mentioned above: there is nothing “hidden” on the same-sex front when two men or two women get married; anyone can see that they are a same-sex couple right away (usually).  If anything, it is more obvious than on the mixed-race side of the coin, where some state laws identified someone as “colored” with mere fractions of non-white heritage and even less melanin than Michael Jackson, and thus precluded them from some marriage options.

A fundamental difference has to be fundamental: it has to be blatantly obvious to everyone who looks at the matter.  There is certainly such a difference between same-sex and opposite-sex marriages, but that isn’t where this question lies.  Why interracial marriages are so obviously different from same-sex ones as to warrant different treatments remains unclear.

(And note that General Clark agreed.  If he’s not sure there’s a [valuable] fundamental difference between the black soldier question and the gay solider one, then he’s certain to be doubtful on the marriage issue.  And that’s a good thing.)

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Updated on Decmeber 9, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: Massachusetts Strikes Back

Today’s Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that “civil unions” won’t fulfill their same-sex marriage requirement from last November isn’t particularly surprising.  They said “marriage” and that’s what they meant.

I was encouraged by seeing this comment in the ruling, though:

Because the proposed law by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage, it continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status.  […]  The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.

I anticipate seeing increasing support for “civil unions” across the country (being used as a stop-gap), with an eventual Supreme Court case on “separate but equal” grounds which will do away with the term in favor of simple “marriage”.  First we need to get a hodgepodge of “civil union” statutes among the various states, followed by lawsuits and legislation forcing them to unify in meaning and value.  It will take years to get to and through that stage, but it is refreshing to see “separate is not equal” coming up so early in the discussion, and from the judicial side of things.
 

Gay Marriage: What Are They Scared Of (Part 2)?

Continuing the previous entry, but taking a different angle.

Consider again the idea (promoted by opponents) that same-sex marriage does not merely extend marriage, making it accessible to more people and thus “larger”, but that instead it creates a separate institution.  (Something certainly not equal in the eyes of same-sex marriage foes, and probably not even equivalent to them.)

That is, same-sex marriage creates an alternative.  An option.

Options are the last thing that same-sex marriage opponents want there to be.  There is only one God-approved form of coupling.  Homosexuality bad.  Pre-marital sex bad.  Adultery bad.  Polygamy bad.  Divorce bad.  (Well, maybe they’ll let that one slide.)

They have a monopoly and by God (ahem), they want to keep it.

(What is the value of a monopoly?  In the real world, while it all seemingly boils down to money — and there’s probably a facet of that here — the real purpose of a monopoly is power.  In the marriage arena, due to the religious sacrament angle, that’s spiritual power, but power nonetheless.)

(As an exercise for the reader: comparison resistance to the “option” of other forms of marriage to the resistance to the “choice” of abortion.)

So where lies the real “threat” to marriage?  My boyfriend, Rusty, who was raised in semi-rural Kentucky (no jokes, please), gave me some insight into this.  With my own upbringing as a preacher’s kid in small town Washington, I could see the point.

Things can be vastly different when you live in an urban setting, with great access to variety in everything (food, technology, new, religion, etc.) than when you live in the country.  Consider more rural locations: small schools where everyone knows everyone in the class, where there may be only a handful of churches in town (all Christian and several likely Fundamentalist), where there are fewer bars than churches.  (Check out the song “My Town” from country duo Montgomery Gentry for a good picture of this.)

In a scenario such as this, the idea of alternate lifestyles of any sort is frowned upon.  You go to school, you go to church, you grow up, you go to church, maybe you go to college (if you’re a good student; as little as 10% of my graduating class went right on to college), you get married (probably to your high school sweetheart), you go to church, you have kids, you take the kids to church, and the cycle continues.  There are no “options” conceived of, and there certainly are none offered.  This is why many gay men and lesbians come out in their 30s and later, having to divorce an opposite-sex spouse and deal with kids: they only had one option to choose from in the beginning.  It’s not that they thought they were straight, it’s that they had never been taught to conceive of other options for their lives.

So when people who aren’t opponents of same-sex marriage laughingly say “What are they afraid of?  That suddenly men will leave their wives and get married to other guys?”, that is exactly what opponents are afraid of.  That, given government-approved options, people will opt out of the cycle, even in small-town America.  That existing married couples will “wake up and smell the coffee,” realize that their existing marriages are shams, divorce, and pursue same-sex relationships.  And more, that people will opt out of “traditional” marriage ahead of time, before they get sucked in, with the result that the cycle breaks early.  And thus not only is the monopoly of marriage imperiled, but the future population of church attendance is all at risk, with the spiritual and temporal power that accompanies that.

(Oh, and with the money that accompanies it, too.  Never forget the money.)

So in a very real way, same-sex marriage opponents do believe that their limited version of marriage is “threatened” by other options.  If other options are available, there may genuinely end up being fewer people who pursue “traditional” marriage, with all the changes which would result from that.

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Updated on November 29, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: What Are They Scared Of (Part 1)?

One of the points that same-sex marriage foes have made is that such marriages “threaten” traditional marriage, without any explanation of the term.  In this era of high divorce rates, serial marriages, and celebrity stunts like Britney Spears’ recent 55-hour marriage, it’s hard to picture just what they mean.

(Do they drop that term in as a little distraction bomb, never intending there to be an answer?  Or is the meaning so self-evident to them that the need to explain it never occurs to them, much like we might say “click on the link” without saying what “click” and “link” are?)

The Advocate columnist Richard Goldstein points to what may be at the core of this “threat” in his February 3 [2004] column (not available online; archives only go back to 2008), “Civil unions: the radical choice”.  Here is the pertinent sentence:

Such [civil union] statutes point to a future in which couples will have many options, from “covenant marriage,” in which both parties sign a contract pledging not to divorce, to a number of less binding choices.

That is, same-sex marriage (and civil unions) “threaten” the idea that there is one and only one possible answer for becoming a couple: marriage (of the “traditional”, heterosexual bent).  Same sex marriage is thus, to them [same-sex marriage foes], not an expansion of existing marriage but an alternative, a way of selecting something that isn’t “regular” marriage.

There’s a concept I learned years ago to explain the opposition to gay rights: some people see “civil rights” as a bucket holding a limited amount of stuff, and thus the “creation” of new “rights” for one group causes a reduction in the amount of rights everyone else has.  (This is without any factual or statistical basis, of course.)  Extending this to the marriage question, then, you see that the addition of alternate marriage equivalents results in the belief that the amount of “real” marriage in the bucket left for everyone else is made less, and thus traditional marriage is “threatened”.

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Updated on November 23, 2010
 

Gay Marriage: State of the Union of Two People

For those who missed it, the entire 2004 State of the Union speech is transcripted here.

Here’s the “gay marriage” portion:

A strong America must also value the institution of marriage.  I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization.  Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton.  That statute protects marriage under federal law as a union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states.

Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives.  On an issue of such great consequence, the people’s voice must be heard.  If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process.  Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.  (Applause.)

The outcome of this debate is important — and so is the way we conduct it.  The same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God’s sight.  (Applause.)

Items of note:

• Nowhere does he say what the issue is.  You have to know what he is talking about to know what he is talking about.  Certainly can’t mention gays and lesbians!
   
• This is the only place Clinton was mentioned in the speech.  Implication: “Look, Dems!  Even your hero was against this!”
   
• Technically, the Defense of Marriage Act just says that State A doesn’t have to respect what State B says about same-sex marriage-type stuff.  That’s a bit different from State B is not allowed to redefine what marriage means for other states.
   
• I’m sure there are people who believe DOMA is constitutionally valid simply because it hasn’t been challenged in the courts.  When there’s been nothing to enforce (until Massachusetts), there’s been nothing to challenge.
   
• “Activist judges” are anyone who doesn’t decide in the way you want.  As opposed to, say, judges who decide that votes don’t really have to be counted.

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Updated on November 12, 2010