Why Should the Gays Be Spared the Misery of Marriage??

Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity recently to participate in the conversation about Amendment One. Things have just been too hectic. But, I've taken some time in the last few days to read up on the arguments from both the "Protect All Families" website and from the "Restore America" website. And I have to say, what a preposterous waste of time, energy and money! I can't believe that we are having this conversation in the 21st century after battling our way through the ending a few millenia of slavery, we are still fighting to oppress people. I have to think that the writers of the Enlightenment Era must've thought that we would be well past the need to converse about the fundamental human rights of our fellow citizens. I mean, really? Wouldn't all of this energy and thought and argument be better spent deciding how we can improve our schools, or reduce the poverty rate, provide universal health insurance or improve our competitive edge in the world marketplace? Apparently not.

I think most people in my generation would find it completely ridiculous that until 1967 it was illegal in many states for a white person to marry a black person. And yet, at the time a great many Americans thought those laws to be quite justified. And a vast majority of those who supported those laws did so in the name of Christianity. They claimed that God Almighty himself had proclaimed that the races should not mix. What nonsense! I hope that my children will find it just as preposterous that we are now attempting to make the illegality of homosexual unions a Constitutional amendment. I hope that when they are of voting age, they will be voting on issues that impact the efficacy of our school system, welfare system, and health care system and talking about crazy it was that their mother had to talk about whether or not a woman should be allowed to be married to another woman.

There are a couple of arguments that I find particularly troublesome. They are troublesome because they stretch the truth for the purpose of confusing the issues and garnering support from people who may not fully understand where the arguments and facts are coming from. And the truth stretching is happening from both the pro-amendment and anti-amendment camps. These half truths are just as bad as outright lies because they encourage people to vote for the wrong reasons. The proposed amendment should be defeated or approved on its own merits and not on half truths or exaggerations of the truth.

Let's start with the argument that the amendment will suddenly upend the state's domestic violence laws. This is simply untrue. North Carolina's domestic violence laws do not depend on the existence of any type of "Union" existing between the parties, and in this regard the "Restore America" folks win their argument. The notion that after this amendment a battered woman would not be able to seek protection from her batterer is ludicrous. An unmarried battered woman today is able to take out a warrant against her assaulter, and so will she be able to after the amendment is adopted.  Apparently this issue was raised as a defense to a domestic violence charge in Ohio after the adoption of their state constitutional amendment, and the state's supreme court found that the amendment had no impact on the state's domestic violence laws. I suppose it is possible that such a challenge would find it's way to North Carolina's court system, but I have to agree that our courts are likely to hold in exactly the same fashion as Ohio's. Point to Restore America.

The amendment is also not likely to have an impact on the current state of health insurance laws. Some health insurance companies operating in the state of North Carolina currently offer an option for domestic partners to be covered under the health insurance policy of the primary insured, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. This option is currently available under my health insurance policy from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. With the simple click of a box online and the payment of an additional premium I could cover my boyfriend and his child if we currently lived together. There is no requirement that I prove that we have been "united" in any type of civil ceremony or marriage, only that we live together. The adoption of the proposed amendment would not impact this ability because the insurance company does not require that we prove that we are in some type of legal recognized civil union. And in this regard, the argument that the amendment affects heterosexual couples in the provision of health insurance is, in my opinion, also incorrect. Again, point to the Restore America camp.

However, the Amendment could be a giant step backward for the efforts of homosexual couples to have access to one another in the hospitals in North Carolina. While the adoption is not likely to have an immediate impact (homosexual couples are already prohibited from visiting each other in the state's emergency rooms because homosexual marriage is already illegal and privacy laws only allow immediate family access to emergency room patients), it would be another hurdle to be crossed by families trying to overturn the current status quo in privacy laws.But, it would not have any impact on the ability of homosexual couples to make decisions for one another under health care powers of attorney or HIPAA agent designations. Point here to the Protect All Families camp, and a wash for the health debate in general.

Finally, there are two things about this debate, both emanating from the Christian Right, that stir up a very passionate (and hateful though I wish it were not) response from me. They are (i) that the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, denounces homosexuality and for this reason we should continue to persecute those who are homosexual, and (ii) homosexuality is a choice. First, let me say that it should be a criminal offense for anyone, particularly our government officials, to persecute a group of people in the name of Christianity. It is the single least Christian thing any person can do. I cannot imagine that Christ would stand in front of a homosexual person and tell him or her that they are in some way less than another person, or that they are not entitled to love, compassion and civil rights. The biblical argument against homosexuality has lost all application for me. Much like the fact that the bible condoned slavery. As we evolve as a race, we must allow for our thought and religion to evolve as well. Much like the Constitution of the United States, the Bible must be viewed as a living document, available to be adapted to the social constructs of the present age. Otherwise, the entire religion is doomed to be relegated to the histories of man as were the religions of the Celts, the Romans, the Greeks and the Zoroastrians.

The reason for the biblical proscription against homosexualilty is simple. In ancient times, homosexuality had to be condemned because it did not foster the continuation of the human race. Homosexual couples could not procreate, and procreation was the most important task any person could undertake in an age when most children did not survive childhood and fertility treatments were not available for heterosexual couples who could not bare children. Much of what was written in the Old Testament, especially in Liviticus, served as an oral history to help a civilization who could not read or write remember how to make their food, which animals were more likely to make them sick, and how to keep clean and prevent infection. All of these things were necessary for people to survive 4,000 years ago. Now? Not so much. But, if we are to take the entire Bible word for word without any adaptation for today's social constructs, then I fully expect all of the Christians I know to stop eating pork and shellfish, to do no work on the 25th day of September (quite convenient for me and my eldest since that is his birthday), to not wear polyblend clothing, to not cut the hair at the temples or trim the edges of the beard, to not get tattoos, and to immediately kill any man or woman who is an adulterer. Clearly the human race, as it has civilized, has chosen to overlook those mandates from Leviticus that no longer seem to have practical application. So should it be for the proscription against homosexuality. It is simply not pragmatic, or civilized, to continue the Biblical argument against it.

And finally, the argument that Amendment One is not a civil rights issue because homosexuals choose to be gay, and therefor the law is a law against behavior and not against the rights of a class of people. I have to admit that I have known people who have chosen to be gay for a time, or from time to time, and changed their minds.  A very wise woman I know once said that she did not choose what form the spirit of her soul mate would take, but she did choose to accept that soul mate in whatever form it took. In other words, she fell in love with the soul of the person, not the body. The fact that it is a choice for some people, does not make it an issue of constitutional import, however. And I also have to say that there have been instances in my life when I have known that a particular person was gay well before he was old enough to make any choice about his sexuality. Aside from several of my high school classmates, there was a boy in daycare with Dylan who, from the age of two, preferred to play dress-up, wear high heels and dresses, and play house or dolls with the girls in the daycare rather than playing guns or army with the boys. He was extremely effeminate...and delightful. We loved him to bits. He was several years older than Dylan, and if he is of age now and in love with a man he believes to be his soul mate, how could I wish upon him the unhappiness of never being able to marry his true love? That would not be a choice for him, but an expression of who is his, through and through, and such a cruel denial of a happiness that he deserves to experience.

In the end, the Supreme Court has already held that the right to marry is a basic civil right which cannot be deined to a citizen (in a case involving the desire of a prisoner to be married). And they are right. It is a basic right. The right to be recognized by your government and your community as a loving couple and family. I have seen homosexual couples resort to the extremes of adult adoption to create a legally binding familial relationship so that they can visit one another in the hospital, inherit from one another, and share the same last name. Why do we force people to take such extreme measures under the law to do what they are already doing, loving and supporting one another? It's preposterous. And it has to stop. We are better than this. And truly, the money that has been spent on the PR campaign for the defeat or approval of this amendment would have been better spent putting food in the mouths of the poor than trying to cement the denial of a basic civil right to homosexuals. We must defeat Amendment One. Protect us all!