It would be strange to me if I didn’t at least comment on the overturning of Proposition 8 in California on August 4, 2010. And while it is a great victory for equal rights for the GLBTQ community, it certainly brings the naysayers out of the woodwork. This causes me some stress, and I start to review my beliefs on the matter yet again.
From all of the Facebook chatter on the subject, there have been a few points that I’d like to address for my own sanity, and in my own space. First, the argument that the government revoked the voting rights of seven million people shows that this country’s system of power is corrupt and imbalanced, and, Second, that here we go arguing over the definition of marriage again. These two points irk me especially much, and have caused me much thought.
So, while I was waiting for the decision to be released, I was watching some videos of the two attorneys who spearheaded this case with the California State Supreme Court. They reviewed the legal history of marriage in the United States and some notable Supreme Court cases that had to do with marriage, and were answering questions in a interview about overturning the voters decisions. They remarked that this was how the Judicial system was set up – to overturn laws passed that were not constitutionally sound. They said that if we had left it up to the people to vote on it at the time, the laws the prohibited interracial marriage likely would have never been confounded. They also said that public opinion followed the results of that law, eventually, and they expected the same to happen here.
After the decision was published, I found a comment from, unsurprisingly, one of my old missionary companions that said he thought this was not the way a government for the people, of the people, and by the people was supposed to be run and that this is not what the USA was all about, and how dare they revoke the rights of millions of voters their constitutional right to vote for laws they agree with.
On this, I cannot believe the twisty-turns of the brain to make it all right to prevent equal rights of millions of people by passing laws that are based on fear and misinformation, but not all right to overturn that law when it breaks the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution!
Okay, and the second point has me more involved, really. It really tried to boil down the issue into a changing the definition of marriage question. And while the definition he is referring to is the man/woman definition, I just wanted to say a few things. Firstly, that is not the only, age-old, definition of marriage. Marriage has been defined in quite a few different ways across cultures and across time. And I think that what same-sex couples want is more than the title of marriage for equality sake. There is a lot more to marriage than a certificate and a package of legal rights that are currently unavailable to same-sex couples in most states.
I read through the Wikipedia entry on Matrimony, and interestingly enough, it and other dictionary definitions do not define marriage as being between a man and a woman. That definition was primarily contemporary in nature and religious in origin. I would like to present marriage as an idea, a word with connotation, and an experience that can and should be shared with all men.
Some notable quotes about marriage from the Wikipedia entry, which incorporates cross-cultural definitions:
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found.
People marry for many reasons, including one or more of the following: legal, social, emotional, economical, spiritual, and religious. These might include arranged marriages, family obligations, the legal establishment of a nuclear family unit, the legal protection of children and public declaration of commitment.
Marriage practices are very diverse across cultures, may take many forms, and are often formalized by a wedding. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved. Almost all cultures that recognize marriage also recognize adultery as a violation of the terms of marriage.
Marriage is usually recognized by the state, a religious authority, or both. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution irrespective of religious affiliation, in accordance with marriage laws of the jurisdiction. If recognized by the state, by the religion(s) to which the parties belong or by society in general, the act of marriage changes the personal and social status of the individuals who enter into it.
Specifically, I would like to focus on the social aspects of marriage. I keep asking myself this question: What does marriage mean to us as a society? If I can say that I’m married, what personal and social status is inferred by that statement? If I meet someone who talks about his wife, what do I infer about their commitment, their relationship, over some other title such as partner?
I think it’s important to acknowledge that for something that most people take for granted, marriage is a lot more than a social and legal contract. It is a social prestige class. And to those who can’t get it even if they wanted to, it’s an elite group to which they are not entitled, legally, through no fault of their own, and are therefore left feeling like a lower class. Like they are not good enough to be accepted by society in that way, no matter how much they try. They don’t qualify, and can never take on those terms of respect: marriage, husband, wife, spouse, ceremony, matrimony, wedding. They are left with these: living together, partner, civil union, boyfriend, domestic partner, roommate, friend. Linguistically, the connotations of these words and phrases are definitely less than those associated with matrimony. I feel that pain, I really do.
So it makes a lot of sense to me that even if, as some have said, in California, I can have a domestic partnership with all of the same legal rights as a state marriage, it is still not the same thing by a long shot. Besides, if there are two equivalent (read separate but equal) institutions which provide the same benefits to different groups of people, should it not also be named the same thing? Math says so: if a=b and b=c, then a=c.
So why is there such protectiveness against the name? Why is it so important to keep the gays out of marriage? The standard homophobic responses aside, I found something else in the Wikipedia entry that caught my attention. This may be one unconscious reason for it:
Many of the world’s major religions look with disfavor on sexual relations outside of marriage. Sexual relations by a married person with someone other than his/her spouse is known as adultery and is also frequently disapproved by the major world religions (some calling it a sin). Adultery is considered in many jurisdictions to be a crime and grounds for divorce.
In other words, marriage is religion’s way to sanction sexual activity. If homosexuals are allowed to marry, and I think this gets to the “destroying marriage” argument, then by association, gay sex is legitimized. Legally legitimized. Made equal to heterosexuality.
Heterosexuality cannot and must not be equal to homosexuality, it never has. This is their silent mantra.
If marriage is their last bastion of power and same-sex couples infiltrate it, their grounds for discrimination are legally stripped. Their power and authority over the “sexual deviants” and miscreants become unjustified, and they will have to find a way to live in a world where we are as respected as they, and in the same ways. But they do not look forward, and they do not remember the foundation on which this country was built:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
If we are indeed created, then there can be no difference between them and us. We are one diverse race, one country, and one human family. Segregation and discrimination will fail, with time, as the world comes to believe this truth. My love and my feelings are as natural and as primal as yours, and my wish is for that sameness to be as recognized and as celebrated as your own.