Critical Exponent

Please vote! For those of you in Massachusetts, here’s a list of candidates and here are the ballot questions. With equal marriage on the line, you may want to take a look at the MGLPC-endorsed candidates.

You’ve been together with your boyfriend for ten years, you’ve raised a son together for six. The whole country is in a frenzy over gay marriage. Your mom wants you to marry, your boyfriend is opposed to it, and your son says “Ewww.” And you? You’re afraid of jinxing the good thing you’ve got going by taking part in a ceremony that, at the end of the day, means nothing where you live.

Welcome to Dan Savage’s world.

I just finished reading The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and my Family. I liked this book most of all because it is an entertaining read. Like a good relationship or a satisfying conversation, Savage strikes the right balance between light banter, Heartfelt Sharing, and Deep Topics. One of the passages I found most moving, for example, is the following:

Being single visits a kind of constant, low-intensity misery on a person—at least on a person who does not want to be single. Coming home to an empty house, not having anyone to confide in, facing illnesses on your own—being alone hurts, but people can get used to it. But being in a long-term relationship does not spare you from all that day-to-day pain. It just banks it. Every day I’m with Terry [Miller, Savage's partner], every day I’m not alone, a little misery gets put into a savings account, where interest is compounded hourly. The day Terry dies, all the pain I avoided when I was with him will be paid out all at once; I will suffer a windfall of misery. I imagine the pain would literally feel like being torn in two. Maybe that’s what people mean when they talk about “one flesh”?

Savage, if you did not know, is not only the editor of Seattle’s Stranger who last week confronted Washington’s Chief Justice over the gay marriage ruling, but he is also a sex-advice columnist. As such, he is not afraid to tackle taboo subjects that make people on both sides of the gay marriage debate uncomfortable. After dispensing with the well-known fallacy that marriage is all about the children and thus should be reserved for straight couples (huh?), he proceeds to talk about monogamy:

Straight couples do not have to be monogamous to be married or married to be monogamous. Monogamy no more defines marriage than the presence of children does. Monogamy isn’t compulsory and its absence doesn’t invalidate a marriage…. Married straight couples are presumed to be monogamous until proven otherwise, of course, and that assumption serves as a powerful inducement to be (or appear to be) monogamous.

By promoting the erroneous notion that monogamy defines marriage, and that all gay couples who want to marry want to be monogamous, supporters of gay marriage are creating and, in some cases, attempting to enforce a double standard of their own—one that opponents of gay marriage can poke holes in pretty easily. Just as supporters of gay marriage can produce gay and lesbian couples with children, opponents of gay marriage won’t have to search for long before they find nonmonogamous gay couples among the thousands who have wed in Canada and Massachusetts….

He goes on to cite James Dobson’s specious arguments about the supposed perniciousness of gay marriages, and continues:

Before I argue with Dobson, I would like to agree with him on one point: Dobson is absolutely correct when he says that children are naturally conservative creatures—but not in the modern sense of the term “conservative.”….Children are conservative inasmuch as they require stability in order to feel secure and therefore prefer things to stay the same. They need ritual and familiarity….

If we want to promote stable, lasting relationships—particularly for all those naturally conservative kids out there—we shouldn’t encourage people to have unrealistic expectations about sex, love, and desire.

As if on cue, the same week that I read The Committment, The New York Times published an article on gay men stuck in straight marriages. The stories there are just heartbreaking: in most cases, rather than participating in the consensual non-monogamy of the kind that Dan Savage discusses, the men are outright cheating on their wives because they cannot conceive of a life with an open adult emotional attachment to another man.

Perhaps it’s naïve at this point to expect America to have a sane discussion about same-sex marriage any time soon, but I think both sides would do well to read Savage’s book and understand what a gay family actually feels like—beyond the moralistic debates, the political posturing, and the hate-filled rhetoric.

Apparently, justices in Washington State are elected, which brings in an interesting factor into an analysis of the decision. How much of it was election-year pandering?

Dan Savage had much earlier scheduled an interview with the Chief Justice for the The Stranger’s endorsement issue. It just so happened that the decision was handed down the day before. You can hear the Stranger Election Control Board grilling Chief Justice Alexander here.

I propose we lobby Congress to submit the Equal Marriage Amendment for consideration by the states:

Section 1. The right of two individuals to enter into or dissolve a civil marriage, with all its attendant rights and responsibilites, shall not be denied or abridged on account of either participant’s sex.

Section 2. This article shall not be construed as obliging private institutions or faiths to recognize any marriages.

Section 3. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Here’s the story from Seattle P-I

Among other things, the majority denies equal protection claims and finds that the legislature may have rational grounds for DOMA– such as procreation. What a bunch of BS.

Sigh.

Here’s Justice Bridge’s dissent:

What we are called upon to do here is address the availability of the civil contract of marriage—the only characterization of the issue presented that permits governmental intrusion into what is otherwise a personal, private relationship between two people. The State’s intrusion is governed by the articles of our constitution. What we ought not to address is marriage as the sacrament or religious rite—an area into which the State is not entitled to intrude at all and which is governed by articles of faith. What we have not done is engage in the kind of critical analysis the makers of our constitution contemplated when interpreting the limits on governmental intrusion into private civil affairs; what we have done is permit the religious and moral strains of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to justify the State’s intrusion. As succinctly put by amici the Libertarian Party of Washington State and the Log Cabin Republicans of Washington: “To ban gay civil marriage because some, but not all, religions disfavor it, reflects an impermissible State religious establishment.” Amicus Curiae Br. of the Libertarian Party of Washington State et al. at 11. After all, we permit civil divorce though many religions prohibit it—why such fierce protection of marriage at its beginning but not its end?

He goes on to state:

Whatever bases the plurality and Justice J.M. Johnson’s concurrence assert to support the DOMA, the legislative history of the law reveals that it stems, in substantial part, from thinly-veiled animosity against a minority group, animosity that is rooted in moral and religious objections to same-sex relationships. Its very title asserts as much—“defense” of marriage—“defense” from what? Against whom? The DOMA ought to be recognized for the discriminatory enactment that it is, and rejected as such.

To many, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages are contrary to religious teachings. But none of the plaintiffs in the cases before us today seek acceptance of same-sex marriage within a particular religious community. They seek access to civil marriage. Some churches and religious organizations may refuse to solemnize same-sex unions, and that is their right in the free exercise of religion under our constitution. A religious or moral objection to same-sex marriage is not, however, a legitimate state interest that can support the DOMA…

However, religious restrictions on the institution of marriage have never governed civil marriage in this country, nor would it be constitutionally permissible for them to do so. For example, historically many religions have strictly forbidden marriage outside of the denomination, but these churches could not prevent interdenominational civil marriages because “marriage was [ultimately] a state matter, not subject to . . . religious restrictions.” CHAUNCEY, supra, at 80-81 (citing The Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law (1918) and statements issued by protestant denominations forbidding marriage to Catholics). This court cannot endorse the use of state law to impose religious sensibilities or religiously-based moral codes on others’ most intimate life decisions. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 571; see also CHAUNCEY, supra, at 85-86. The DOMA reflects a religious viewpoint; religious doctrine should not govern state regulation of civil marriage.

Anyway, this dissent is worth reading carefully.

New York ruled that the state constitution does not require that gay marriage be accepted. That may be true, but some of the rationales cited by the decision, at least as quoted by the NY Times, are plain silly:

“There are at least two grounds that rationally support the limitation on marriage that the legislature has enacted,” the court said, “both of which are derived from the undisputed assumption that marriage is important to the welfare of children.”

So children of gay parents would be better off if their parents could marry, right? And since gay marriage does not affect straight unions, those children are just as well off.

First, the court said, marriage could be preserved as an “inducement” to heterosexual couples to remain in stable, long-term, …

Because obviously if gay people get married, straight people will no longer be induced to get married since their families, churches, and friends will no longer put pressure on them, they will cease caring about gift registries, and will be willing to throw out the window the thousands of legal perks that come with marriage.

… and child-bearing relationships.

The next step is to outlaw marriage for infertile couples.

Second, lawmakers could rationally conclude that “it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and the father.”

“Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like,” the court said.

“Intuition” also argued against mixed-race marriages not that long ago. And obviously, a child of gay parents will have no contact with family members, teachers, store clerks, neighbors, or friends of a gender other than that of his or her parents.

Nicole Kidman is the latest poster child for gay marriage.

She just got married in the Catholic Church without getting an annulment, even though she was previously wed to Tom Cruise. How is this possible? The Catholic Church refuses to recognize the previous marriage because it was performed in the Church of Scientology. As the BBC notes, “[t]he divorce granted to the couple in 2001 was a legal rather than religious procedure for Kidman.”

You see the connection?

Even though the couple were legally wed under secular law, no church was forced to accept a marriage it didn’t want to. In other words, the Church was perfectly happy to make the distinction between civil marriage and religious marriage for Kidman. We have heard no cry from the Vatican as to how allowing Scientology marriages undermines the sanctity of Catholic marriages or forces the church to recognize them— because it doesn’t.

So why, then, can’t the Vatican refuse to recognize gay marriages if it wishes, but stay out of the civil marriage debate?

“Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s…”

Globe editorial on gay marriage:

Gay marriage isn’t a real threat. In Massachusetts, married gay couples are not masterminding terrorist bombings. They are not refining weapons-grade uranium nor are they running up federal budget deficits. Married gay couples are not monitoring their fellow Americans’ phone calls and e-mails. They haven’t cut Medicaid. And they didn’t put that doughnut hole in the middle of Medicare’s new prescription drug program.

The President of the United States is not a uniter, he is a panderer.

In his weekly radio address this weekend, he reiterated his support for the Federal [Anti-]Marriage Amendment. This man, and many in Congress, clearly feels that not giving legal protection to couples who are committed to each other is much more important than stopping the killings in Iraq, the crisis in Darfur, the inexorable degradation of the environment, the rise in anti-intellectualism, the lack of ethics in government, health care for all Americans, and a living wage for all workers.

What can you do? Get active! Write your officials! Pull out your wallet!

Become a member of the Human Rights Campaign . Have a postcard sent to Congress on your behalf. Check where your Senators stand, and write to them expressing your views!

On May 17, 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from their list of mental disorders.

May 17 now marks the International Day Against Homophobia. Read about the history of IDAHO.