The Education Question

"I don't want my kids taught in school that gay marriage is okay." But as we saw it has nothing to do with marriage. What they are really saying is "I don't want my kids taught that GAYS are okay."

In a society such as ours, lots of people do things that we don't approve of. Roman Catholics don't approve of contraception, divorce, or remarriage after divorce. Observant Jews don't eat pork. Vegetarians won't eat meat. Mormons eschew caffeine. Values are taught in the home, and the only lessons the schools teach is that people are different, and we need to tolerate our differences.

Why is this so difficult? We don't live in a theocracy. Why is the potential fact of gay marriage so much more offensive than the presence of non-Christians, or meat eaters, or the divorced? The fact is we already have to deal with many people with whom we disagree on value judgments. It's completely unclear why "Teh Gay" (TM) are so much more reviled.

The fact is that gay families exist, and their children go to school. Children of straight parents will inevitably meet children of gay parents. To admit that these families exist is not to say you approve (any more than a Catholic "approves" of someone on their third marriage). Yet it is their very existence that is under attack. The infamous case of David Parker in Massachusetts is a case in point. He protested about a book that showed a picture of a gay family--not in any sexual context, mind you, simply a book that showed all sorts of families.

But he wanted his children removed from any situation where they could be "exposed" , even segregated from classmates who had gay parents, lest those classmates contaminate his child by mentioning they have two daddies. It wasn't gay marriage per se. It wasn't any endorsement. It wasn't anything about sex. It was the very fact of the existence of gay families that he objected to. (The group supporting him, MassResistance, has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.. More about the case and their lieshere.)

"I don't want my kids going to a gay wedding!"

Ah, that was one of the great lies of the Prop8 campaign, wasn't it! Yes, a teacher invited anyone in her class who wanted to, to attend her wedding. No one was forced, it was not a school sanctioned event, yet anyone who went had to have a parental permission slip. And some parents didn't send their kids. Indeed, the ugly irony is that the pictures of children at the wedding that were used in the pro-prop8 campaign were children of supportive families who wanted their kids there. Needless to say, the Pro-Prop8 campaign used these photos without permission. So much for parental consent, eh? The ironies abound.

You see, even though the parents who wanted to opt out, did, their problem is that ANYONE was able to go. They want to completely silence anything about gay couples, even for people who approve. It's not about marriage. It's not about their rights as parents. I have come to realize it's about their desire to impose their beliefs on EVERYONE by rendering gay people invisible, and sanctioning discrimination.

But one thing is clear in the aftermath of the Prop 8 decision. They did not eliminate our families. In fact the court held, 7:0 , that gay families must have exactly the same rights as straight families. All the court let them take away from us was the term "marriage".

So the kids will still need to learn about gay couples, in civics class, and from their classmates. The teacher will still invite her class to her wedding to see her "DP'd". And we will still have protections for our families and our children and take our part in the fabric of society.

Because we're still here.

The Traditional marriage question: what tradition?

There have been a lot of claims that the marriage equality movement somehow threatens "traditional" marriage.

Exactly what is the tradition? Upon closer look, we find that our concepts of marriage have changed enormously over time. Marriage as we currently know it, based on the free association and choice of the couple, is really quite modern, maybe 150 years old. And the traditions aren't really what the anti-equality want to admire. Let's review some "traditions".

1. Polygamy Although in Western cultures, we haven't practiced polygamy in some time (except, ironically, for the Mormons), there is a strong tradition of polygamy in many cultures even today. It's quite common in many parts of the world. In fact, if you go back to Biblical times, polygamy is clearly Biblically countenanced. However, it is also associated with inequities (both to women, of course, and the unpartnered men) and is socially destabilizing. And it's clear no one (on either side) is arguing for the return of polygamy!
   
   
2. Then there's the issue of partner choice. Even today, marriage is really a legal contract. Traditionally, that contract was between families. Women were essentially property, to be sold with a bride price or a dowry to form alliances and bring benefits. And, arranged marriages are still very common in many countries today. It wasn't until the 1800's that the concept of marriage between romantic partners really became accepted, that marriage for love was the ideal.
   
   
3. What about the tradition that marriage is for children? That one left us in the 1960s, when sex and marriage became totally decoupled by the "sexual liberation" movement. In fact, around 40% of births in the US are to unwed mothers. Moreover, many couples choose not to have children at all; there's no requirement for fecundity. Since we let the infertile and the elderly marry, we've agreed that marriage ≠ childbearing. So, procreation is no longer the reason for marriage. Another tradition already gone.
   
   
4. Traditionally, marriage is between people of the same race. That tradition was Biblically justified by conservatives. However, in 1948, in Perez v. Sharp, the SCoCal found that
   

   "the essence of the right to marry is the right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice."

   while in 1967, when SCOTUS finally caught up to California, they averred that Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," and

   To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. .....Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

   
   
5. Of course, a huge change to "traditional marriage" comes through women's rights. It really isn't until recently, well within the last century, that women gained rights to property and consideration in their own right. It used to be that a woman had to have her husband's permission to apply for a credit card or to obtain contraception. She had no right to independent property. She could be beaten, or raped, by her husband and this was perfectly legal. In fact, it wasn't until 1993 that the last US state recognized the concept of marital rape. I don't know about you, but I don't find much to celebrate in that kind of tradition.
   
   
6. Lastly, there's the availability of divorce. In our modern society in the US, most states now allow "no-fault" divorce, where blame or fault need not be assigned one partner. Rates of divorce are high, leading to the estimate that approximately 50% of marriages will be dissolved. It's important to remember that this dissolution is a legal event, not done by the church that might have married the couple. However, biblical strictures against divorce abound, far more common than any mention of same-sex relationships. The Roman Catholic church prohibits remarriage following divorce but most other denominations are more (dare I say) liberal. In fact, there is a distinct irony that those protesting most strongly against marriage equality are often those who countenance divorce, or even have themselves divorced (rates are particular high for evangelicals). "Traditional" marriage being "for life" is therefore no longer the case. There is an implicit recognition that with our lengthened lifespans, not every couple will grow in the same way, and there is no longer an expectation that people must remain in unhappy partnership.

So, what we can see is that our modern concept of marriage is constantly evolving. From rejecting polygamy, to allowing the partners to choose one another, to separating marriage from child-bearing, to allowing people to marry across racial lines, to recognizing women as equal partners, and recognizing that marriages may not last a lifetime we've seen an enormous amount of change, and much of it is quite modern (within the last 150 or even the last 25 years). Pro-equality supporters do not want to change anything in our modern understanding of marriage, except a pronoun.

Importantly, we don't want to change one of the most important aspects of marriage: that of fidelity. Let's just look at marital fidelity. Seems the loudest exponents of "traditional marriage" have the hardest time with its most important tradition. Yes, I'm thinking of David Vitter, Larry Craig, John Ensign, and Mark Sanborn, and their ilk. And I'm comparing them to people like Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon and other GLBT couples who have really been together through thick and thin despite every obstacle. Truly, who is a better exponent of "traditional marriage"?

Half of the people in this country already have the right to marry a woman of their choice. Why shouldn't everyone?

The Religion Question: 3. Religious Values

The opposition claims that their ability to teach their children religious values is abrogated by the presence of people who do not adhere to those values. They use this argument against marriage equality. It can be summed up as, "how can I teach my children homosexuality is wrong if their teacher has a same-sex marriage?"

The answer is, look to the Roman Catholics, who manage to teach a lot of things that are different from the culture to which their children are exposed.

On the subject of sex and sexuality, the Roman Catholic church is way out of step with the mainstream of America. The teachings of the church are not only against homosexuality (which isn't working so well, as it is widely accepted a large fraction of the RC priests at least in this country are gay), but against contraception, and against divorce.

Now, let's start with the strictures against contraception: the Church does not actively work in the political sphere to eliminate access to The Pill, condoms, diaphragms or other forms of pregnancy prevention. Although they disapprove, and are very clear on the subject within the church, those who are not RC are free to use whatever means they can to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Of course, all you need to do is look around inside a Roman Catholic Church to see how well the People of the Church are adhering to that stricture. The days of the big Catholic families with 6 or 8 children are long behind us; I don't think anyone pretends that the majority of the faithful are using the rhythm method.

But here's the thing. Despite the failure of the contraception rule, they (the Institutional Church) are not trying to outlaw contraception.

What about divorce? This one is particularly helpful to consider. The Roman Catholic church is absolutely clear: you cannot divorce and remarry (unless you can afford an annulment, but we won't go there). For the vast majority of Catholics, that means that if they divorce in the civil sphere, they cannot remarry in the church. And that rule IS adhered to, very strongly.

Yet divorce in the civil sphere is legal, as is remarriage. As Andrew Sullivan writes in his excellent essay, Modernity, Faith and Marriage (a MUST READ):

Catholics, for example, accept the word marriage to describe civil marriages that are second marriages, even though their own faith teaches them that those marriages don't actually exist as such. But most Catholics are able to set theological beliefs to one side and accept a theological untruth as a civil fact. ..... Catholics can tolerate fellow citizens who are not Catholic calling their non-marriages marriages - because Catholics have already accepted a civil-religious distinction. They can wear both hats in the public square.

Thus, despite firmly teaching that divorce and remarriage are not allowed, the Roman Catholic church is able to co-exist with a society in which divorce and remarriage are available. They are not advocating for constitutional amendments to outlaw divorce or remarriage. They teach their own values, even if they conflict with the greater society. Because our nation is not a theocracy, and no single religious group gets to make the rules for all.

We really must stress that we are discussing a separation of civil from religious marriage. Religious groups do not get to inflict their definition of marriage onto society at large. The Catholics already accept that for divorce. This is no different.

The Religion Question: 2. Religious Freedom

The next canard of the religious right is that religious freedom demands that they be allowed to discriminate against gay people.

First, as pointed out previously, they don't even speak for all religious groups; what about the freedom of the liberal groups to marry their gay parishioners?

Second, of course, is the myth that somehow they will be arrested for hate speech if they preach against homosexuals. The actual FACTS are that both under guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, they can say what they want within the context of their own church. Events in Sweden and Canada are irrelevant, as those countries do not have the same absolute free speech guarantees as the US. So anyone can, and does, use the pulpit for whatever viewpoint he chooses.

The real crux is, however, that they claim that simply by recognizing gay rights in the secular sphere, their freedoms are abridged. And this argument isn't even about gay marriage, mind you. It's about discrimination law, pure and simple: laws that already exist to protect gay people. They want to be free to discriminate.

One example frequently used is that of a Methodist church in NJ "forced to have a gay marriage in their church!" as the other side breathlessly tells us. Except that's not true at all. The church owned a seashore pavilion, and asked the city for help in its upkeep. In return for the tax dollars, hundreds of thousands of them, the church had to guarantee the public access to the pavilion. Take the public's money, you have created a public resource. You don't get to pick and choose WHICH public is allowed to partake. So they became upset when a lesbian couple wanted to use it (not for marriage which was not legal at that time). The solution was easy: don't take public money, and you owe the public no accomodation.

But the issue here is not that simple. They wanted it both ways; to have public money (including the gay dollars) but without public access. Now, replace the words "gay" with "black", "Jewish", "disabled" and you can see why there's a problem--but only if they have entered into a public partnership.

This isn't about religious freedom at all. It's about using religion as an excuse for discrimination. We need to call them on this, with the following: No church will be "forced" to marry gay people. Indeed, any pastor, priest, rabbi or imam is completely free right now, at this minute, to deny ANY couple marriage rights in their church, synagogue, or mosque. They already have, and will continue to have, absolute right of refusal to anyone. Which is exactly as it should be.

The Religion Question: 1. Religious Identity

The Right loves to invoke religion, and unfortunately we on the left have let them get away with it for too long. It's been a skillful move on their part, because it has led to a lot of general anti-religion bashing from our side, which makes THEM look like the victims. And their current favorite meme is "religious freedom".

The first point to make is that Religion is not of one mind. And the Roman Catholic and Mormon hierarchies do not speak for all religions. Indeed, they do not even speak for their entire communities; Roman Catholics in the pew support gay marriage at about the same rate as other Americans, despite their bishops. Moreover, there are lots of faith communities that are welcoming to various degrees to gay families and gay marriages, and either fully inclusive or getting close to it. These include UCC and the Episcopalians and the Reform Jews and many others. The Episcopalians, the tradition next to the Catholics with which I am most familiar, have a gay, partnered bishop, and many faithfully partnered gay clergy. So, the right wing fundamentalists do not own religion. (See This post for more on the clergy.)

A corollary to this is that there are substantial numbers of GLBT people of faith; many of the religious denominations have active GLBT groups working within the religious structure to change things. I mean, do they really think that there aren't gay people in the pews?

Thus, the opposition cannot speak for all religions, and must share the public sphere with other faiths, as well as with those of no faith. This is really fundamental. Prop8 allowed a single view of religion from an unholy alliance between the Mormon and Roman Catholic churches to dominate the discourse. More reasoned clergy views were ignored. And there are a lot of clergy who are pro gay rights. Some are part of the HRC Religion Council or the California Council of Churches or the coalition group California Faith for Equality.

So the first conclusion is that some religions actually SUPPORT gay marriage. Therefore there is no single "religious viewpoint" on this issue, and we must strongly, but respectfully, point out that the vocal opposition does not speak for all religions.

Myth one busted.

Now, an important part to this is that it does not serve our side to attack those of faith generally. There are lots of progressivee faithful folks who are on our side (some of them hang out at Street Prophets, which is part of the Daily Kos family). Beware the over broad brush. By letting the other side paint us as "anti-religious", we lose. Far more effective to recognize religion is really on our side. After all, Jesus didn't hang out with the Pharisees and the priests. He was with the ones they reviled.

The Children Question

One of the big talking points of the enemies of marriage equality is "the children", as in, what will happen to them? If I had a nickel for every time some pontificating pundit has droned that children must have a father and a mother....

Let's deal with some of those questions shall we?

First of all, the statistics the right wing uses for that argument are generally statistics comparing married parents to single parents. Now, I don't know about you, but in my opinion raising a child on your own is a very hard job, and presumably that single parent is single due to loss of a partner which leaves a whole host of other issues ranging from death to divorce. So, yeah, being a child of a single parent is probably harder for most kids.

Of course, the right doesn't compare straight couples to gay COUPLES raising kids, because those data generally show that Gay families raise well adjusted kids, and children of gay parents are pretty much the same as kids from straight homes. Children of gay couples are no more likely to be in trouble, and no more likely to be gay. They do have one difference: they tend to be a little more tolerant.

So, there's no evidence that kids do better---or worse -- in straight households. SO that's a FAIL for their first argument.

The second question is more puzzling. Because the right acts as though there magically won't BE any kids being raised by gay parents if they just ban same sex marriage. This leads me to wonder; do they think that all those gay parents are going to suddenly become straight and marry heterosexuals? Or, do they think that we will somehow not have kids if we can't marry, and all the children of gay parents will suddenly disappear if they deny us marriage? Or, do they think if we marry we will go steal other people's children? I really wonder how they finish that thought, because it makes no sense.

The FACT is that we will continue to have and raise children whether or not we can marry legally, whether our natural children, or adopted. The LA TImes reported back in the fall that 25% of the gay families in California were raising children. Thus the only effect of preventing our marriage is to leave our children vulnerable and our families at risk. I think, really, that's what they want: they want our families to be at risk and disadvantaged for a "punishment" for the "sins of the parents". Rather sad, when you think about it. And that would be a FAIL for their second argument.

Update: Here's some great language from the Iowa court decision:

The court further noted that the County failed to show how the best interests of children of gay and lesbian parents, who are denied an environment supported by the benefits of marriage under the statute, are served by the ban, or how the ban benefits the interests of children of heterosexual parents. Thus, the court concluded a classification that limits civil marriage to opposite-sex couples is simply not substantially related to the objective of promoting the optimal environment to raise children. This conclusion suggests stereotype and prejudice, or some other unarticulated reason, could be present to explain the real objectives of the statute.

Updated again:
The American Academy of Pediatrics finds gay marriage has a positive effect on children.