On Tuesday, Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races were won by Republican candidates. That shouldn't be a surprise, simply because people are already sick of Obama, and his political clout no longer is what it was during the euphoria of the 2008 election. Another important election was in place this Tuesday, as well. Maine tried to pass gay marriage by a popular referendum, and it got defeated 53%-47%.
Although many were surprised to see the bill fail because Maine is a "blue state," I'm not shocked at all. Even though it's the 21st century, most people still do not like the term "gay marriage." Many in this country are sticklers for tradition, and as such, see marriage as a religious institution as a contract between one man and one woman. However, it's interesting to find, as has been proven in this latest document from the Pew Research Center, that more people are open to the idea of permitting civil unions between same-sex couples. And you can't have any more proof than Washington state voting to make civil unions legal. They didn't call it marriage, and they actually won 53.2%-46.8%.
From a legalistic perspective, there is no difference between a civil union and a "gay marriage." The fact that it's merely a game of semantics is perplexing. Both contracts come with the same rights and priveleges. The only difference is the name.
If it were only a matter of rights, then the gay rights movement would just advance civil unions, rather than tamper with the word "marriage." This, however, is not the case. It's the sad truth that they just want to "stick it to the Religious Right" rather than advance equal rights. If they do want to take this path by re-defining marriage, they should take a lesson from Vermont: start with civil unions, wait about a decade, and then pass the re-defined definition of marriage through the legal system.
I don't approve of that option for the sole reason that marriage is a religious institution, whereas a civil union is, well, not to be tautological, a civil institution. Those institutions should have such a distance between the two, in order to remain the respect of both religious and civil institutions. If a church or synagogue wants to accept the institution, that is within their rights, and vice versa. However, a same-sex couple who wants to enter a legally binding contract of a civil union should not be deprived since it doesn't violate the libertarian axiom of non-agression. If the gay rights movement had any sincerity about advancing gay rights with the minimum amount of obstacles, they should advance it under the flag of civil unions, not marriage. A respect for the realm of religion would go a long way for the gay rights movement.
The problem with legal civil unions alongside legal gay marriage is that it is quite similar to the idea of "separate but equal". Many gays might not be willing to go for it because it does seem to imply that they are some kind of second class citizens; and such and argument isn't really off the mark. Imagine if we had separate marriage and interracial marriage licenses, it might give equal rights but would still be quite offensive. Just as much as gays want to stick it to religious folk, religious folk want to stick it to gays; thus they will bicker incessantly about the definition of marriage, and then go running to mommy government to decide like a pair of children.
ReplyDeleteThe ideal solution would just be to have identical civil union contracts for all, and let individual churches call whomever they want married. Everybody wins this way, except the moralizers who want to seek state affirmations of their personal morality.
It's not about re-defining marriage, but a simple recognition that government shouldn't be defining marriage in the first the place. While if it extends any benefits beyond merely enforcing the contracts of such folks, those benefits should be extended equally even if the only difference is in what they are called. There is no logical reason for the government to make a distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples in the legal code, as opposed to how Government buildings may just have separate but equal mens' and womens'bathrooms.
Invoking Plessy v. Ferguson in this argument is doing a disservice to the Civil Rights movement, and let me tell you why. With regards to rights for black people, every societal good they received was inferior, and some, like the right to vote, was not even granted at all. They were wrongfully treated like second-class citizens, and it took nearly 80 years to undo the racist mentality that Plessy v. Ferguson perpetuated.
ReplyDeleteThat's not the case here for gay people. Aside from the fact that homosexuality is an internal identity, rather than an externality, it's much easier to hide. More importantly, we need to examine the definitions of these two supposedly distinct institutions. A civil union is "a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship." Funny how marriage has the same definition.
This discussion needs historical context. America is a country with Puritanical origins stemming from Judeo-Christian values. As such, about half of Americans are still touchy about the definition of "marriage," and that will dissipate when older generations kick the bucket. What the gay rights movement needs to realize is that the only difference between a civil union and a marriage is in name. The rights offered to them in a civil union are identical to those of a marriage. It might seem stupid from our perspective, but America is not quite intelligent to realize that the difference between the two is IN NAME ONLY. By allowing civil unions to come in first, the gays get all the rights they want while it gives Americans some time to think, "Hmmm, there's really no difference here. They're both legal commitments of kinship. Heck, let's just call it a marriage now." I agree it's an idiotic game of semantics that one has to play, but it's going to be the only way that the gay rights movement prevails at the end of the day.