News
Jun. 04 - Gay Dads to Celebrate Father's Day at Saddleback Church
Jun. 02 - Bishop Long Meets with LGBT Families: A Story of Family Reconciliation
May. 30 - Soulforce Releases Video of Bishop Harry Jackson
May. 30 - New Birth to Meet with LGBT Families
May. 27 - LGBT Families Share Their Witness with Hope Christian, Bishop Jackson
The Current State of the Struggle for Equal Civil Marriage Rights
The proposed anti-gay, anti-family Federal Marriage Amendment reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
SOULFORCE RESOURCES
FMA DEFEATED! - Soulforce Applauds U.S. Senate for Rejecting the anti-family Federal Marriage Amendment - July 14, 2004 Press Release
Soulforce Letter to Congress Opposing the Proposed Federal Marriage Amendment - June 22, 2004
Soulforce People of Faith Petition against the "so-called" Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) (pdf version)
Soulforce TALKING POINTS on defining and obtaining equal civil marriage rights and defeating the anti-gay, anti-family federal "marriage" amendment (Click here for PDF file)
Media Message Points (pdf) - Soulforce's four main message points regarding civil marriage and the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment
Community Action Plan (pdf) for educating and advocating for equal civil marriage rights in your community and beyond
Bulletin Insert for your local Congregation (pdf)
Soulforce Action Alert (11/21/03) - WHAT YOU CAN DO! Click here for pdf file
Sample Letter to Congress People Opposing the FMA Find and email your Congress people
Soulforce Alert on the Threat and Tragic Consequences of the FMA
Soulforce Policy Statement on Civil Marriage, August 1, 2003 (Click here for pdf)
Soulforce Flyer on the "so-called" Federal Marriage Amendment (pdf) (please download pdf, make copies, and distribute widely!)
A Soulforce Background Paper (Including a sample list of the rights and protections denied same-gender couples)
Religious Support for Equal Marriage Rights Brochure (pdf): Pdf file provided for printing on 2 pages of Legal Size paper (8 1/2 x 14)
Dos and Donts of Religious Organizing (pdf) - Which political activities are allowed and which are not
OTHER RESOURCES
Intersexuality and the Marriage Debate: "Bodies Like Ours" oped written by Betsy Driver
"God is Still Speaking, About Marriage," a package of educational resources designed to help congregations understand and talk about this issue.
Marriage Brochure from Interfaith Working Group on Religious Support for Equal Civil Marriage Rights
Sermon on Equal Marriage Rights by Don Southworth, Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation (of Atlanta)
LINKS TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
Civil Marriage Resources from GLAAD
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
Gay and Lesbian Advocate and Defenders (Great Resource for Information on Massachusetts marriage decision)
Intersexuality and the Marriage Debate
Other Resources:
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An Ancient and Historic Reminder When Marriage Between Gays Was By Rite
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California Approves Domestic Partnerships
Californians Get The Official Form Here
http://www.ss.ca.gov/business/sf/forms/sf-dp1.pdf
For the most up-to-date information link to:www.lldef.org
The Marriage Project of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.
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NEW YORK TO RECOGNIZE GAY PARTNERSHIPS
by Beth Shapiro
365Gay.com Newscenter in New York
Posted: August 16, 2002
12:19 a.m. EDT/+5GMT/-3PDT
(New York City) Civil Unions, legal in other jurisdictions, now will be legal in New York City. Under legislation passed Thursday, New York has become the first area in the US, outside Vermont and California, to recognize gay and lesbian partnership unions.
Vermont is still the only state in the United States in which gay civil unions are legal. A partner registry has been created in California. Similar registries exist in Nova Scotia and Quebec, and in England and Germany. But, Holland is the only country which currently allows gays and lesbians full marriage rights.
The move, by New York means that city residents who travel outside the state to be united will have the union recognized at home. It also allows couples who have had civil unions to retain their status if they move to or visit New York.
If one of the pair were hospitalized, for example, the partner would be treated as a spouse for visiting purposes.
But, the law does not create a separate registry in New York, nor does it permit civil union ceremonies to be legally performed in the city. It is, however, a small step forward, gay rights advocates say.
Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) objected strenuously to the legislation, which passed by a vote of 34 in favour, 7 against and 4 abstentions.
Felder, an Orthodox Jew, said he objected to the use of the word “marriage” several times in the debate and said was against gay marriages on moral grounds.
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CANADA TO OPEN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ISSUE TO DEBATE
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government, stung by a court decision that ordered it to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, will set up a parliamentary committee to ask the public what it thinks of the idea.
"It's a question of law but it is a very important question of social issue," Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said after a cabinet meeting Wednesday. "The government is very much open-minded to having an open discussion with Canadians, and of course within the Liberal (Party) family as well."
Last week, Ottawa said it would appeal an Ontario lower court ruling that said the traditional definition of marriage -- the union between a man and a woman -- was unconstitutional in excluding gays.
The court gave the federal and Ontario provincial governments two years to change their laws in a ruling welcomed by gay activists but condemned by conservative groups.
In its decision to appeal, the government said there was no consensus that homosexuals should be allowed to marry.
"Proceeding with the appeal keeps all the options open for the government, thereby respecting the consultation process," Cauchon said Wednesday.
The justice minister said his department would present a discussion paper to kick-start the consultations in September, outlining some of the possible policy directions.
Parliament overhauled 68 federal statutes in 2000 to erase most legal differences between heterosexual and homosexual couples. But the government pointedly drew the line at changing the definition of marriage.
08/07/02 16:54 ET
Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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A SOULFORCE BACKGROUND PAPER
INCLUDING A SAMPLE LIST OF THE RIGHTS AND PROTECTIONS DENIED LESBIAN AND GAY COUPLES
Millions of our fellow Americans are confused and misinformed in the belief that marriage is an institution for mixed-gender couples only. In fact, same-gender marriage is an ancient and honorable tradition, practiced now as it has been practiced for more than 1,000 years. (See article that follows on John Boswell's Same Sex Unions In Pre-Modern Europe).
Twenty-eight years ago, the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, conducted his first same-gender wedding ceremony in his home in Los Angeles, California. And though same-gender marriage had no legal standing then (as it has no legal standing now) from that day, UFMCC clergy have performed the rite of holy union for lesbian and gay congregants who want their relationship to be blessed by God and honored by their community of faith.
Nothing the President, the Congress, or the Courts can decide will stop lesbian and gay Americans from falling in love and getting married. Oscar Hammerstein said it best: "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other."
Already, millions of lesbian and gay Americans live together as married couples, in loving, committed, long-term relationships. Every year, thousands of new same-gender marriages are being performed (overtly and covertly) not just by UFMCC clergy, but by enlightened and courageous Protestant, Jewish, and even Catholic ministers and priests as well. We have that rite and will continue to celebrate it, even in the face of bigotry and discrimination.
The question, therefore, is not whether national and state laws oppose the rite of same-gender marriage. The question is whether the Congress and the courts will grant lesbian and gay couples the same 1,047 legal rights and protections obtained automatically by mixed-genders who marry.
Gay and lesbian couples may not be admitted into an emergency ward to see their partners because they are not legally the next of kin. They don't have the right to share tax returns, pensions, or government benefits like Social Security. They can't share parental custody, join property, health insurance, or automatic inheritance rights. They can't make medical decisions if their partner becomes disabled. Even their wills and Powers of Attorney can be set aside by judges who refuse to recognize their long-term relationships.
Lesbian and gay couples are married in the eyes of God and in the eyes of their supportive friends and family; and yet these same couples are denied 1,047 federal and state rights and protections that go automatically with mixed-gender marriage. This is just a small sample of the rights that outlawing same-gender marriage will deny us:
- Automatic Inheritance
- Assumption of Spouse's Pension
- Bereavement Leave
- Burial Determination
- Child Custody
- Divorce Protections
- Domestic Violence Protection
- Exemption from Property Tax on Partner's Death
- Immigration Rights for Foreign Spouse
- Insurance Breaks
- Joint Adoption and Foster Care
- Joint Bankruptcy
- Joint Parenting (Insurance Coverage, School Records)
- Medical Decision on Behalf of Partner
- Various Property Rights
- Reduced Rate Memberships
- Sick Leave to Care for Partner
- Social Security Survivor Benefits
- Tax Breaks
- Visitation of Partner's Children
- Visitation of Partner in Hospital or Prison
- Wrongful Death Benefits
How many times unsupportive parents have misused the law to cut off one partner from the love and comfort of another in his or her greatest hour of need. How many times surviving parents have been awarded child custody instead of the surviving gay or lesbian parent or have been given prized possession a couple has earned together.
This debate is not about marriage. It is about the immoral and unconstitutional practice of withholding those legal rights from millions of law-abiding, tax-paying Americans on the basis of sexual orientation alone.
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DUTCH GOVERNMENT OK'S MARRIAGE
Same-gender couples will soon be able to marry in the Netherlands, now that the cabinet is as ready to march down the aisle as the Parliament has been for months.
"Civil marriage will be made available to people of the same sex," said a statement issued by the Netherlands' cabinet December 11, according to a Reuters report. Although the Parliament will have to give its approval, it's been ready to do so for months, while the government has cautiously applied the brakes.
The registered partnerships which are already in place in the Netherlands will be convertible to marriages when the law is in place. When a measure opening adoptions to same-gender couples now pending before the Netherlands' Parliament passes as expected, the domestic partnerships there will already be the strongest in the world, even before full civil marriages are available.
Registered partnerships equivalent to civil marriage except for adoption rights are currently in place in Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. As a result of court rulings rather than legislation, Belgium and Hungary recognize same-gender couples' inheritance rights, and Israel recognizes couples for survivor benefits.
France's Senate will soon be taking up the hotly-contested domestic partnership bill which the Assembly approved this week, and Brazil's Chamber of Deputies was also expected to vote on a similar measure this week. Germany's new Socialist-led government has promised increased recognition of same-gender couples there.
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GOOD NEWS: IN PHILADELPHIA LIFE PARTNERSHIP IS OFFICIAL
THE CITY GAVE DOCUMENTS TO 30 GAY COUPLES IN CEREMONY.
By Julie Stoiber
Inquirer Staff Writer
www.phillynews.com
They met on a bus in Washington, one riding to work, the other to art school. The attraction was instantaneous. Swaying side by side in the aisle, they cobbled together a conversation, one speaking English, the other Portuguese.
A few stops later, when they parted, one carried a quickly scribbled phone number.
Thirty years later, they are still side by side, still preferring each other's company to anyone else's.
And now, the relationship between Link Harper and Jonas dos Santos is "official." Last night, in a milestone ceremony for Harper, dos Santos and others in Philadelphia's gay community, same-gender relationships were recognized for the first time by the city as "life partnerships" and endowed with benefits once reserved for married couples. "It's such an accomplishment," said Harper, a photographer in the City's Department of Records.
Though they didn't need a city document to affirm their partnership, "it gives an incredible sense of pride," said dos Santos, an artist. For a decade, City Council had debated, and ultimately defeated, legislation that would give official recognition of gay relationships. But last spring, following a long and anguished discussion, and over the objections of Council President John F. Street, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua and other powerful foes, Council passed three controversial domestic partnership bills.
Last night, in a ceremony in the Mayor's Reception Room, 30 couples -- some carrying bouquets, all smiling broadly for the cameras -- received their certificates. As their names were called, they walked to the front of the room.
Many were holding hands; Mary Louise Cervone and Kathleen Burke were holding their 2-year-old son, Danny. A standing ovation greeted Charles Rudolph and David Kloss, who have been together 35 years. The document means city workers can add their partners to their city-paid health insurance policies -- saving them hundreds of dollars a month in premiums -- and name them as beneficiaries for city pensions. For all gay couples in the city, life partner status means an exemption from the city's 3 percent real estate transfer tax if they sell each other property. Couples also can use the life-partner document when applying for insurance, joint bank accounts and joint credit cards.
"You can get those things now, but this may make it easier," said Kevin E. Vaughan, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, which is overseeing domestic partnership registration. Couples who break up must sign a notarized "termination statement" and file it with the commission. Compared to other large cities, Philadelphia was slow to pass domestic partnership legislation: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Washington already had laws on the books. Many corporations -- including IBM, Levi Strauss and Bell Atlantic -- provided such benefits. And some Philadelphia city workers had them, too -- 500 non-union employees, by Mayor Rendell's order, and 4,100 members of District Council 47 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
But the rest of the city's 23,000 workers did not. The significance of the domestic partnership legislation goes beyond the merely practical, though. For many, it's all about symbolism.
"These are people, in many cases, who have been in relationships for many years, and yet they have never had official recognition of their family lives by a public entity," Vaughan said.
Judy Kramer, a medical photographer, and her partner, Dale Ralston, a physician's assistant, won't receive any tangible benefits from life partner status, except the satisfaction of having their relationship publicly affirmed.
"We've been together 23 years, and basically there's nothing to show for it, no public acknowledgment," Kramer said. "It may help change some attitudes in the general public."
The human relations office has received more than 100 calls requesting domestic partnership registration packets, Vaughan said.
Harper and dos Santos dressed up for the event, in matching custom-made sport coats from Portugal.
The partnership ceremony reminded dos Santos, a native of Brazil, of the day he became a U.S. citizen. "Very special," he said.
The couple planned to celebrate with a quiet dinner at home afterward. Dos Santos loves to cook, but because of work and the ceremony, dinner would probably be takeout from their favorite Vietnamese restaurant.
Their rowhouse just north of Northern Liberties is full of unusual art and the warm, sweet smell of incense. There's a homey quilt on the bed in their guest room, a vase of pale pink roses on the kitchen table, and a heavenly courtyard out back, lush with ivy and red impatiens. It's a good life, they say, harmonious and balanced, rich with love.
"It's not husband and wife, it is two males living and loving one another," dos Santos said in an interview the day before the ceremony.
"It isn't role-playing," added Harper.
"It's a communion," dos Santos said. "It's really powerful."
They have never hidden their relationship. Their families accepted it -- dos Santos refers to Harper's father and stepmother as "my in-laws" -- and so have their co-workers and friends.
Like Kramer, they hope City Council's willingness to recognize relationships like theirs might change some negative stereotypes of gay life.
"The domestic partnership bill is giving validation to two people who can live together, who can contribute to society, who can be decent, who can be creative," dos Santos said. Harper, whose duties as a city photographer include taking pictures at City Council meetings, said the gay community is indebted to Vaughan, Rendell and others who backed domestic partner legislation.
"Mayor Rendell's push and drive inspired those Council people," he said. "I think he gave them the feeling they could express openly the way they felt, and they did, and it passed." City Council's choice of the terminology "domestic partner" was ideal, Harper said.
"It has a kind of neutrality ... it's not romantic," he said. "When it gets romantic, people get put off."
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MORE EMPLOYERS WEIGH DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS
By Sherwood Ross
REUTERS, September 28, 1998
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Although only 6 percent of employers currently offer their workers benefit coverage for domestic partners, 29 percent more have the idea under consideration, a new study shows.
Such actions could be a boon to many of the estimated 5.6 million households headed by unmarried couples, approximately one-third of them same-gender couples.
Domestic partners are defined as unmarried people "who live together in a financial relationship, and have some type of financial interdependence," according to Buck Consultants, Inc., a New York-based human resources firm that conducted the benefits survey.
"More and more companies are accepting that this is the right thing to do," said Marsha Venturi, a principal in Buck's Secaucus, N.J., office.
"If it's offered to those partners where the serious nature of the commitment is at the same level as someone who might be married to someone else, we don't expect it to be significantly more costly than if you cover spouses and other family members," Venturi said.
"As pressure increases to attract and retain talented employees, many employers find that providing domestic partner benefits is a relatively low cost means of achieving this goal," an executive summary of the study published by the consulting firm said.
However, Phoebe Liebig, associate professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and a benefits authority, said, "My guess is that this benefit isn't going to be something that springs up like wildflowers because there is a move now in Congress to cut off these kinds of benefits, particularly for same-gender."
Buck found that employers who offer the benefit do so "in an attempt to be fair to all employees," to "create employee goodwill" and to "enhance the employer's overall corporate image for innovation" in human resources practices.
Other employers are acting "for fear of employee claims of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status," the consulting firm said.
Of employers who do not offer the benefit, 56 percent said there was no employee interest in it; 30 percent cited cost concerns; and 21 percent said they had moral objections to it. (Some gave more than one reason.)
The trend toward benefits for nontraditional couples became apparent when Buck surveyed 1,058 employers last August. Two-thirds of the companies had 500 workers or more, making the study data more representative of larger businesses than smaller ones.
According to Buck, employers who set up domestic partner coverage must decide if the benefits will be limited to same-gender domestic partners who cannot marry by law or if they will be available to all unmarried partners who meet their requirements.
Buck said that employers could define eligible "domestic partners" in a variety of ways, including:
- A committed relationship of two unrelated individuals.
- A specified minimum time period for the relationship to have endured, say, two years.
- Cohabitation.
- Shared responsibilities on the part of the partners, both domestically and financially.
Employers' fears that covering male same sex-couples might drive up their health costs by increasing the risk of AIDS claims "has not proven to be true among employers actually offering such coverage," the Buck executive summary said.
Because of privacy concerns, they noted, gay employees often decline to enroll partners in corporate health care plans.
EDITORS: Sherwood Ross is a freelance writer who covers workplace issues for Reuters. Any opinions in the column are solely those of Mr. Ross.
www.irish-times.com
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AN ANCIENT AND HISTORIC REMINDER "WHEN MARRIAGE BETWEEN GAYS WAS BY RITE"
Provided by LelioRisen@aol.com
As the churches struggle with the issue of homosexuality, a long tradition of gay marriage indicates that the Christian attitude to same-gender unions may not always have been as "straight" as is now suggested, writes Jim Duffy.
Opinion: RITE AND REASON
by Jim Duffy
Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman pronubus (best man) overseeing what in a standard Roman icon would be the wedding of a husband and wife. In the icon, Christ is the pronubus. Only one thing is unusual. The "husband and wife" are in fact two men.
Is the icon suggesting that a homosexual "marriage" is one sanctified by Christ? The very idea initially seems shocking. The full answer comes from other sources about the two men featured, St Serge and St Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who became Christian martyrs.
While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly close. Severus of Antioch in the sixth century explained that "we should not separate in speech [Serge and Bacchus] who were joined in life". More bluntly, in the definitive 10th century Greek account of their lives, St Serge is openly described as the "sweet companion and lover" of St Bacchus.
In other words, it confirms what the earlier icon implies, that they were a homosexual couple. Unusually their orientation and relationship was openly accepted by early Christian writers. Furthermore, in an image that to some modern Christian eyes might border on blasphemy, the icon has Christ himself as their pronubus, their best man overseeing their "marriage".
The very idea of a Christian homosexual marriage seems incredible. Yet after a 12-year search of Catholic and Orthodox church archives, Yale history professor John Boswell has discovered that a type of Christian homosexual "marriage" did exist as late as the 18th century.
Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has evolved both as a concept and as a ritual. Prof Boswell discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient church liturgical documents (and clearly separate from other types of non-marital blessings such as blessings of adopted children or land) were ceremonies called, among other titles, the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century Greek) or the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).
These ceremonies had all the contemporary symbols of a marriage: a community gathered in church, a blessing of the couple before the altar, their right hands joined as at heterosexual marriages, the participation of a priest, the taking of the Eucharist, a wedding banquet afterwards. All of which are shown in contemporary drawings of the same-gender union of Byzantine Emperor Basil I (867-886) and his companion John. Such homosexual unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12th/early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (Geraldus Cambrensis) has recorded.
Boswell's book, The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe, lists in detail some same-gender union ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century "Order for Solemnisation of Same-Sex Union", having invoked St Serge and St Bacchus, called on God to "vouchsafe unto these thy servants [N and N] grace to love one another and to abide unhated and not a cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God and all thy saints." The ceremony concludes: "And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded."
Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic "Office of Same-Sex Union", uniting two men or two women, had the couple having their right hands laid on the Gospel while having a cross placed in their left hands. Having kissed the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.
Boswell found records of same-gender unions in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St Petersburg, in Paris, Istanbul, and in Sinai, covering a period from the 8th to the 18th centuries. Nor is he the first to make such a discovery. The Dominican Jacques Goar (1601-1653) includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek prayer books.
While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, it was only from about the 14th century that anti- homosexual feelings swept western Europe. Yet same-gender union ceremonies continued to take place.
At St John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish Church) in 1578 as many as 13 couples were "married" at Mass with the apparent co-operation of the local clergy, "taking Communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together", according to a contemporary report.
Another woman-to-woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century. Many questionable historical claims about the church have been made by some recent writers in this newspaper.
Boswell's academic study however is so well researched and sourced as to pose fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their attitude towards homosexuality.
For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be a cowardly cop-out. That evidence shows convincingly that what the modern church claims has been its constant unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is in fact nothing of the sort.
It proves that for much of the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom from Ireland to Istanbul and in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given ability to love and commit to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honoured and blessed both in the name of, and through the Eucharist in the presence of, Jesus Christ.
Jim Duffy is a writer and historian. The Marriage of Likeness. Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe by John Boswell, HarperCollins.
Submitted by Paul Moor (Berlin)
100722.1351@compuserve.com
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Why "Civil Union" Isn't Marriage
The New Republic, May 8, 2000
State of the Union
By Andrew Sullivan
Perhaps the current moment was inevitable. Around one-third of Americans support civil marriage for gay men and lesbians; another third are strongly opposed; the final third are sympathetic to the difficulties gay couples face but do not approve of gay marriage as such. In the last ten years or so, there has been some movement in these numbers, but not much. The conditions, in short, were ripe for a compromise: a pseudomarital institution, designed specifically for gay couples, that would include most, even all, of the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage but avoid the word itself. And last week, in a historic decision, Vermont gave it to us: a new institution called "civil union."
Understandably, many gay rights groups seem ready to declare victory. They have long been uncomfortable with the marriage battle. The platform of this weekend's Millennium March on Washington for gay rights merely refers to security for all kinds of "families." The Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual lobbying group, avoids the m-word in almost all its literature. They have probably listened to focus groups that included people like my mother. "That's all very well," she told me in my first discussion with her on the subject, "but can't you call it something other than 'marriage?'"
The answer to that question is no. Marriage, under any interpretation of American constitutional law, is among the most basic civil rights. "Separate but equal" was a failed and pernicious policy with regard to race; it will be a failed and pernicious policy with regard to sexual orientation. The many advances of recent years - the "domestic partnership" laws passed in many cities and states, the generous package of benefits finally granted in Hawaii, the breakthrough last week in Vermont - should not be thrown out. But neither can they be accepted as a solution, as some straight liberals and gay pragmatists seem to want. In fact, these half-measures, far from undermining the case for complete equality, only sharpen it. For there are no arguments for civil union that do not apply equally to marriage. To endorse one but not the other, to concede the substance of the matter while withholding the name and form of the relationship, is to engage in an act of pure stigmatization. It risks not only perpetuating public discrimination against a group of citizens but adding to the cultural balkanization that already plagues American public life.
This essay is not intended for those who believe that homosexual love is sinful or immoral, or who hold that homosexuality is a sickness that can be cured, or who claim that homosexual relationships are inherently dysfunctional; these are not the people pushing the civil-union compromise. With at least a veneer of consistency, these groups want no recognition for gay couples at all. No, the people heralding civil unions are generally sympathetic to homosexual rights. They are the allies that the marriage cause cannot afford to lose. They acknowledge the equal humanity of their gay friends and fellow citizens. But they need to see that supporting civil union while opposing marriage is an incoherent position - based more on sentiment than on reason, more on prejudice than principle. Liberals, of all people, should resist it.
The most common liberal argument for civil union but against marriage was summed up by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in January. "Marriage," she said, when pressed to take a position, "has got historic, religious, and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been: between a man and a woman." This statement, which is more elaborate than anything said by Vice President Al Gore or Texas Governor George W. Bush on the topic, is worth examining.
It has two aspects. The first is an appeal to the moral, historical, and religious content of an institution unchanged since "the beginning of time." But even a cursory historical review reveals this to be fragile. The institution of civil marriage, like most human institutions, has undergone vast changes over the last two millennia. If marriage were the same today as it has been for 2,000 years, it would be possible to marry a twelve-year-old you had never met, to own a wife as property and dispose of her at will, or to imprison a person who married someone of a different race. And it would be impossible to get a divorce. One might equally say that New York's senators are men and have always been men. Does that mean a woman should never be a senator from New York?
Equally, an appeal to the religious content of marriage is irrelevant in this case. No one is proposing that faith communities be required to change their definitions of marriage, unless such a community, like Reform Jewry, decides to do so of its own free will. The question at hand is civil marriage and only civil marriage. In a country where church and state are separate, this is no small distinction. Many churches, for example, forbid divorce. But civil divorce is still legal. Many citizens adhere to no church at all. Should they be required to adhere to a religious teaching in order to be legally married?
So, if we accept that religion doesn't govern civil marriage and that civil marriage changes over time, we are left with a more nebulous worry. Why is this change to marriage more drastic than previous ones? This, I think, is what Clinton is getting at in her second point: "I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been: between a man and a woman." On the face of it, this is a statement of the obvious, which is why formulations of this kind have been favorites of those behind "defense of marriage" acts and initiatives across the country. But what, on further reflection, can it possibly mean? There are, I think, several possibilities.
The first is that marriage is primarily about procreation. It is an institution fundamentally designed to provide a stable environment for the rearing of children - and only a man and a woman, as a biological fact, can have their own children within such a marriage. So civil marriage is reserved for heterosexuals for a good, demonstrative reason. The only trouble with this argument is that it ignores the fact that civil marriage is granted automatically to childless couples, sterile couples, couples who marry too late in life to have children, couples who adopt other people's children, and so on. The proportion of marriages that conform to the "ideal" - two people with biological children in the home - has been declining for some time. The picture is further complicated by the fact that an increasing number of gay couples, especially women, also have children. Is there some reason a heterosexual couple without children should have the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage but a lesbian couple with biological children from both mothers should not? Not if procreation is your guide.
Indeed, if it is, shouldn't we exclude all childless couples from marriage? That, at least, would be coherent. But how would childless heterosexual couples feel about it? They would feel, perhaps, what gay couples now feel, which is that society is diminishing the importance of their relationships by consigning them to a category that seems inferior to the desired social standard. They would resist and protest. They would hardly be satisfied with a new legal relationship called civil union.
Another interpretation of Hillary Clinton's comment is that real marriage must involve the unique experience of a man attempting to relate to a woman and vice versa. Some theologians have even argued that a heterosexual relationship is a unique opportunity for personal growth, because understanding a person of the opposite sex is more daunting and enriching than understanding a person of the same sex. So opposite-sex marriage builds character and empathy in a way same-sex marriage does not and therefore deserves greater social encouragement. Opposite-sex marriage fosters the virtues - communication, empathy, tolerance - necessary in a liberal democracy.
Leave aside the odd idea that heterosexual relationships are more difficult than gay ones. The problem with the character-building argument is that today's marriage law is utterly uninterested in character. There are no legal requirements that a married couple learn from each other, grow together spiritually, or even live together. A random woman can marry a multimillionaire on a Fox TV special and the law will accord that marriage no less validity than a lifelong commitment between Billy Graham and his wife. The courts have upheld an absolutely unrestricted right to marry for deadbeat dads, men with countless divorces behind them, prisoners on death row, even the insane. In all this, we make a distinction between what religious and moral tradition expect of marriage and what civil authorities require to sanction it under law. It may well be that some religious traditions want to preserve marriage for heterosexuals in order to encourage uniquely heterosexual virtues. And they may have good reason to do so. But civil law asks only four questions before handing out a marriage license: Are you an adult; are you already married; are you related to the person you intend to marry; and are you straight? It's that last question that rankles. When civil law already permits the delinquent, the divorced, the imprisoned, the sterile, and the insane to marry, it seems - how should I put this? - revealing that it draws the line at homosexuals.
Indeed, there is no moral reason to support civil unions and not same-sex marriage unless you believe that admitting homosexuals would weaken a vital civil institution. This was the underlying argument for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which implied that allowing homosexuals to marry constituted an "attack" on the existing institution. Both Gore and Bush take this position. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have endorsed it. In fact, it is by far the most popular line of argument in the debate. But how, exactly, does the freedom of a gay couple to marry weaken a straight couple's commitment to the same institution? The obvious answer is that since homosexuals are inherently depraved and immoral, allowing them to marry would inevitably spoil, even defame, the institution of marriage. It would wreck the marital neighborhood, so to speak, and fewer people would want to live there. Part of the attraction of marriage for some heterosexual males, the argument goes, is that it confers status. One of the ways it does this is by distinguishing such males from despised homosexuals. If you remove that social status, you further weaken an already beleaguered institution.
This argument is rarely made explicitly, but I think it exists in the minds of many who supported the DOMA. One wonders, for example, what Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich, both conducting or about to conduct extramarital affairs at the time, thought they were achieving by passing the DOMA. But, whatever its rationalization, this particular argument can only be described as an expression of pure animus. To base the prestige of marriage not on its virtues, responsibilities, and joys but on the fact that it keeps gays out is to engage in the crudest demagoguery. As a political matter, to secure the rights of a majority by eviscerating the rights of a minority is the opposite of what a liberal democracy is supposed to be about. It certainly should be inimical to anyone with even a vaguely liberal temperament.
Others argue that they base their opposition to gay marriage not on mere prejudice but on reality. Gay men, they argue, are simply incapable of the commitment, monogamy, and responsibility of heterosexuals. They should therefore be excluded as a group from an institution that rests on those virtues. They suspect that if gay marriage were legal, homosexuals would create a new standard of adultery, philandery, and infidelity that would lower the standards for the population as a whole. But, again, this is to set a bar for homosexual marriage that doesn't exist for any other group. The law as it now stands makes no judgments about the capacity of those seeking a marriage license to fulfill its obligations. Perhaps if it did the divorce rate would be lower. But it doesn't, and in a free society it shouldn't. The law understands that different people will have different levels of achievement in marriage. Many will experience divorce; some marriages may not last a week, while others may last a lifetime; still other couples might construct all sorts of personal arrangements to keep their marriages going. But the right to marry does not take any of this into account, and failing marriages and successful marriages are identical in the eyes of the law. Why should this sensible and humane approach work for everyone but homosexuals?
Or look at it this way. Even if you concede that gay men - being men - are, in the aggregate, less likely to live up to the standards of monogamy and commitment that marriage demands, this still suggests a further question: Are they less likely than, say, an insane person? A straight man with multiple divorces behind him? A murderer on death row? A president of the United States? The truth is, these judgments simply cannot be fairly made against a whole group of people. We do not look at, say, the higher divorce and illegitimacy rates among African Americans and conclude that they should have the right to marry taken away from them. In fact, we conclude the opposite: It's precisely because of the high divorce and illegitimacy rates that the institution of marriage is so critical for black America. So why is that argument not applied to homosexuals?
This, however, is to concede for the sake of argument something I do not in fact concede. The truth is that there is little evidence that same-sex marriages will be less successful than straight marriages. Because marriage will be a new experience for most gay people, one they have struggled for decades to achieve, its privileges will not be taken for granted. My own bet is that gay marriages may well turn out to be more responsible, serious, and committed than straight ones. Many gay men may not, in practice, want to marry. But those who do will be making a statement in a way no heterosexual couple now can. They will be pioneers. And pioneers are rarely disrespectful of the land they newly occupy. In Denmark, in the decade since Vermont-style partnerships have been legal, gays have had a lower divorce rate than straights. And that does not even take into account the fact that a significant proportion of same-sex marriages in America will likely be between women. If gay men, being men, are less likely to live up to the monogamy of marriage, then gay women, being women, are more likely to be faithful than heterosexual couples. Far from wrecking the neighborhood, gay men and women may help fix it up.
There remains the more genuine worry that marriage is such a critical institution that we should tamper with it in any way only with extreme reluctance. This admirable concern seems to me easily the strongest argument against equal marriage rights. But it is a canard that gay men and women are unconcerned about the stability of heterosexual marriage. Most homosexuals were born into such relationships; we know and cherish them. It's precisely because these marriages are the context of most gay lives that homosexuals seek to be a part of them. But the inclusion of gay people is, in fact, a comparatively small change. It will affect no existing heterosexual marriage. It will mean no necessary change in religious teaching. If you calculate that gay men and women amount to about three percent of the population, it's likely they will make up perhaps one or two percent of all future civil marriages. The actual impact will be tiny. Compare it to, say, the establishment in this century of legal divorce. That change potentially affected not one percent but 100 percent of marriages and today transforms one marriage out of two. If any legal change truly represented the "end of marriage," it was forged in Nevada, not Vermont.
But if civil union gives homosexuals everything marriage grants heterosexuals, why the fuss? First, because such an arrangement once again legally divides Americans with regard to our central social institution. Like the miscegenation laws, civil union essentially creates a two-tiered system, with one marriage model clearly superior to the other. The benefits may be the same, as they were for black couples, but the segregation is just as profound. One of the greatest merits of contemporary civil marriage as an institution is its civic simplicity. Whatever race you are, whatever religion, whatever your politics or class or profession, marriage is marriage is marriage. It affirms a civil equality that emanates outward into the rest of our society. To carve within it a new, segregated partition is to make the same mistake we made with miscegenation. It is to balkanize one of the most important unifying institutions we still have. It is an illiberal impulse in theory and in practice, and liberals should oppose it.
And, second, because marriage is not merely an accumulation of benefits. It is a fundamental mark of citizenship. In its rulings, the Supreme Court has found that the right to marry is vested not merely in the Bill of Rights but in the Declaration of Independence itself. In the Court's view, expressed by Chief Justice Earl Warren in Loving v. Virginia in 1967, "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." It is one of the most fundamental rights accorded under the Constitution. Hannah Arendt put it best in her evisceration of miscegenation laws in 1959: "The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which 'the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one's skin or color or race' are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' ... and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs."
Prior even to the right to vote! You can see Arendt's point. Would any heterosexual in America believe he had a right to pursue happiness if he could not marry the person he loved? What would be more objectionable to most people - to be denied a vote in next November's presidential election or to no longer have legal custody over their child or legal attachment to their wife or husband? Not a close call.
In some ways, I think it's because this right is so taken for granted that it still does not compute for some heterosexuals that gay people don't have it. I have been invited to my fair share of weddings. At no point, I think, has it dawned on any of the participants that I was being invited to a ceremony from which I was legally excluded. I have heard no apologies, no excuses, no reassurances that the couple marrying would support my own marriage or my legal right to it. Friends mention their marriages with ease and pleasure without it even occurring to them that they are flaunting a privilege constructed specifically to stigmatize the person they are talking to. They are not bad people; they are not homophobes. Like whites inviting token black guests to functions at all-white country clubs, they think they are extending you an invitation when they are actually demonstrating your exclusion. They just don't get it. And some, of course, never will.
There's one more thing. When an extremely basic civil right is involved, it seems to me the burden of proof should lie with those who seek to deny it to a small minority of citizens, not with those who seek to extend it. So far, the opposite has been the case. Those of us who have argued for this basic equality have been asked to prove a million negatives: that the world will not end, that marriage will not collapse, that this reform will not lead to polygamy and incest and bestiality and the fall of Rome. Those who wish to deny it, on the other hand, have been required to utter nothing more substantive than Hillary Clinton's terse, incoherent dismissal. Gore, for example, has still not articulated a persuasive reason for his opposition to gay marriage, beyond a one-sentence affirmation of his own privilege. But surely if civil marriage involves no substantive requirement that adult gay men and women cannot fulfill, if gay love truly is as valid as straight love, and if civil marriage is a deeper constitutional right than the right to vote, then the continued exclusion of gay citizens from civil marriage is a constitutional and political enormity. It is those who defend the status quo who should be required to prove their case beyond even the slightest doubt.
They won't have to, of course. The media will congratulate George W. Bush merely for conceding that the gay people supporting his campaign are human beings. Gore will be told by his pollsters that supporting the most basic civil right for homosexuals would be political suicide, and he will surely defer to them. That is politics, and I have learned to expect nothing more from either candidate. But the principle of the matter is another issue. To concede that gay adults are responsible citizens, to concede that there will be no tangible damage to the institution of marriage by their inclusion within it, and then to offer gay men and women a second-class institution called civil union makes no sense. It's a well-meaning surrender to unfounded fear. Liberals of any stripe should see this. The matter is ultimately simple enough. Gay men and women are citizens of this country. After two centuries of invisibility and persecution, they deserve to be recognized as such.
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Dutch Gay Marriage Stats Released
December 2001
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Dutch civil servants wed nearly 2,000 same-sex couples in the first six months after gay marriage was legalized this year, a government agency said Wednesday.
The gay marriage law that took effect on April 1 made the Netherlands the first country to grant gay couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, including the right to adopt children.
The Central Bureau of Statistics said 2,100 men and 1,700 women had married someone of the same sex by Sept. 30.
Gay marriages comprised 3.6 percent of all new marriages. In April, this figure was more than 6 percent as gays rushed to take advantage of the new law, but it gradually stabilized at around 3 percent.
Sixteen percent of the people who married someone of the same sex had earlier been in a heterosexual marriage. Most were divorced, and a few were widows or widowers.
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