NOV. 4, voters in California will have a chance to make national history when they cast their votes for Proposition 8. The proposition, which aims to amend the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriage and explicitly define a valid marriage as only between one man and one woman, came about following the May 2008 California Supreme Court ruling that stated homosexual couples had the right to marry under the California Constitution. So far, three state supreme courts — those of California, Massachusetts and Connecticut — have issued rulings allowing marriage between same-sex couples, arguing that not even civil unions are acceptable substitutes for the real thing.
Proposition 8, and Florida’s similar Proposition 2, is regressive and intolerant. It is fundamentally divisive and discriminatory and seeks to restrict the administrative and legal rights of a group of people simply because they belong to a certain social subset. Restricting the rights of homosexuals on a state or federal level is the exact opposite of everything this country was founded on: the promise of equality for all, even the people you disagree with.
Proposition 8 supporters want to claim that it’s not an attack on the gay community because it doesn’t aim to repeal the rights of homosexuals to civil unions, which have all the same trimmings as marriage. But didn’t we learn anything from segregation? Separate is inherently unequal. Civil unions aren’t enough, because there is no valid reason for homosexual couples to be denied marriage.
Yes, marriage was originally a Biblical tradition, but it now often takes place miles from the nearest house of worship, in a courthouse, between atheists or agnostics who in no way associate their union with a Christian God. Civil and religious marriages are two separate institutions, and I am not suggesting forcing individual churches to perform ceremonies that go against their teachings. Certain churches may choose, on an individual basis, to restrict their wedding ceremonies to straight couples only, but America isn’t a theocracy: Federal and state law isn’t subject to the will of religion.
Some ads supporting Prop 8 are sponsored by a group called ProtectMarriage.com, which defines itself as “a broad-based coalition of California families, community leaders, religious leaders, pro-family organizations and individuals from all walks of life.” But does being pro-family necessitate being anti-gay marriage? Is it impossible for a gay couple to have a normal, loving, healthy family life? Some parents are panicked that their children will be exposed to a homosexual lifestyle, as though being around homosexuals might somehow influence their children to become homosexual. It’s not exposure to poverty or abusive parents or sexual exploitation or neglect that troubles these parents about the state of the American family — it’s homosexuals. Yet study after study has shown that children raised by gay parents are no less happy or well-adjusted than their more traditional peers; the data consistently shows that it’s the love and communication between a parent and a child that matters, not the parents’ genders. Isn’t it possible to wish to “protect” families and promote a pro-family agenda while still recognizing that a gay household can be just as loving and healthy as a straight one?
The prominent tone of ProtectMarriage.com’s ads is fear, appealing to worries that children will be forced to accept gay people as equals in school and that churches will be seen as intolerant for refusing to acknowledge the validity of the homosexual lifestyle. Their Web site frets that “schools will now be required to teach students that gay marriage is the same as traditional marriage ... this undermines the value of marriage.”
This is an argument frequently made by those opposed to gay marriage: that somehow, traditional marriage is rendered invalid by the allowance of gay marriage. How does recognizing the validity of a relationship between two people of the same gender somehow devalue a relationship between two people of different genders? Gay marriage is not a threat to “traditional” marriage. A divorce rate greater than 50 percent is a threat to traditional marriage. Shotgun weddings for pregnant teenagers are a threat to traditional marriage. Emotionally and physically abusive relationships are a threat to traditional marriage. But a loving gay couple who want to reap the benefits of making their union official under the state? Not threatening.
How, in 2008, decades after the civil rights movement, decades after the feminist movement, can we even be entertaining the idea of restricting the rights of group of law-abiding American citizens just because they’re “different”? There are hundreds of reasons that gay couples should be granted all the exact same rights — including the title of “marriage” — that heterosexual couples are given, but I haven’t the space to do them all justice in this column. Proposition 8’s proponents suggest that gay marriage is a danger to traditional marriage and traditional families, but if they’re really concerned with the family, shouldn’t they be spending more time focusing on the things that really harm us?
Michelle Lamont’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at m.lamont@cavalierdaily.com.
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