The Wake

To declare that marriage is simply, by definition, between a man and a woman is to shroud prejudice. To say that marriage is deeply rooted in heterosexual tradition gains no moral ground either – after all, slavery was rooted in just as much tradition.

I certainly don’t believe everybody opposing gay marriage is a bigot or homophobe. I do, however, think if they could step back and imagine what their lives would be like if they were denied this basic right, they might start to reconsider their stance.

The very nature of the way we see love and affection is altered by the possibility of marriage. To go on a first date or to fall in love for the first time – those are all entirely different experiences when the possibility of marriage lies before you.

The current struggle for same sex marriage is reflecting – finally - a change in society’s moral perception of gay men and women. Marriage is the most basic right missing from my life, and this is a struggle – to have homosexuals recognized as human beings of equal value to heterosexuals.

It’s unreasonable to appeal to the tradition and sanctity of marriage as though it were a divine and immutable institution. In centuries past, marriage was often considered optional, primarily engaged in by the wealthy. In some societies, relationships between adult males and children were allowed. A man could marry a 12-year-old girl. While divorce was illegal, the 12-year-old wife was defined as property and could be disposed of at the whim of the male. If one wants to engage in protecting such sanctity of marriage, remember to also exclude non-whites – they didn’t have equal rights until a 1967 Supreme Court ruling overturned the 1912 ban on interracial marriage. It was then that Chief Justice Earl Warren proclaimed, “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.” That’s all I want, that’s all we deserve – the freedom to love and marry whom we choose.

When women were granted the right to own property in the 19th century, it was seen as a challenge to marriage. It was argued that this would lead us down the slippery slope to the destruction of marriage. It did not…it was one of many redefinitions of marriage throughout our history. This is not the first time an amendment has been proposed to the Constitution to protect the “sanctity” of marriage. In the past, all civil rights battles fought against faulty logic. This is no exception.

There is no substantial evidence that a child growing up with same-sex parents will be deficient or deprived. Raising children is not about arbitrary statistics that categorize the parents; it is about the love from parents and many studies have shown that children grow up well in loving families, whether gay or straight.

So will gay marriage destroy marriage as we know it? In Denmark, where gay marriage is legal, researchers found the gay divorce rate to be only one-fifth that of the straight divorce rate in the first six years after legalization.

Additionally, the argument that government and married citizens have always had direct teamwork toward maintaining the population goes out the window when one looks at how society has evolved to accept childless couples.

It has been well established, for example in Plessy v. Ferguson, that separate but equal is not equal. Granting gays civil unions as a consolation prize for marriage is nothing short of immoral. Marriage is indeed a sacred institution and one that through communal and legal recognitions signals the unity of love and sex into marriage. When people discover their sexuality, they are divided into two groups; straight people are validated and gay people are told that they will never be able to establish a legal marriage. The two little words “I do” are used to separate the two groups. As I discovered my sexuality, I also received the message that I would never be able to legally say those words.

Isn’t it ironic that religious conservatives are anxious to deny marriage to competent and productive gay adults, yet they support the same right for criminals, the mentally ill and a variety of social delinquents? It’s clear the focus is not on the sanctity of marriage. That is a smokescreen used to obscure the real agenda – to deny basic rights to homosexuals.

It is reasonable for all of us to be concerned about changes in social conventions, including marriage. Change is uncomfortable, change can be painful and sometimes change is not positive. But the history of America has been a history of expanding rights as we recognize the dignity of individuals. Rights were denied to women, to Native-Americans and all non-whites in the Constitution, but amendments were passed to rectify those inequities. Amendments should not be used to deny basic rights. We cannot allow our potential discomfort with change to result in a federally mandated intrusion into the private lives of individuals.