Men and Women Only Please
Yesterday, Maryland's highest court upheld a statute defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It was a close vote: 4-3. Gays cried, traditionalists exulted.
The court certainly didn't close the door on the same-sex marriage issue in Maryland. It merely punted the whole thing into the lap of the legislature. "In declaring that the State's legitimate interests in fostering procreation and encouraging the traditional family structure ... our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," said Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr., who wrote the majority opinion.
The same-sex marriage issue does merit discussion. In the Maryland case, same-sex couples argued that the Maryland law is a form of sex discrimination. Like the court, I don't really see it this way. Currently everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex and no one has the right to marry someone of the same sex. We all have the one right; we're all denied the other. There's no discrimination against any one group. That this situation works out to the satisfaction of heterosexuals and not of gays is almost beside the point. Same-sex marriage is such a big expansion of the rights of everyone we need debate. What is the impact to society? We need to discuss it. Same-sex marriage is not the no-brainer some folks - both conservative and liberal - want it to be. In this case, the legislature is the proper place to begin.
Personally I have no problem with same-sex marriage. If two people want to create a stable, loving family unit why should society stop them? The high divorce and teen pregnancy rates seen in this country as well as the amount of spouse and child abuse do not lead me to think hetero-marriage is the noble, pro-family, society-sustaining, life-affirming institution traditionalists suggest it to be. The notion that marriage is for producing children has never been anything but antiquated. Senior citizens get married all the time without any intent (or capability) of producing offspring. All the hysterical, slippery-slope predictions suggested by traditionalists ("What's next? Marrying animals? Marrying dead people?") are nothing but canards. And please, please, please don't wave your Bible in my face and shout about biblical injunctions and abominations before God. Two verses plucked from a Pauline letter, devoid of any historical context, are not a sound basis for public policy. We need a 21st-century solution for all of society not just conservative Christians.
I expect the issue to surface again when the House of Delegates begins meeting in January. Gay couples are smarting from yesterday's ruling and religious zealots want to seal current law in the state constitution. The legislating will be difficult. But in the end, the fair and compassionate thing to do is ensure that everyone in Maryland is treated as equally as possible by the law.
I'll keep you posted.
K-
The court certainly didn't close the door on the same-sex marriage issue in Maryland. It merely punted the whole thing into the lap of the legislature. "In declaring that the State's legitimate interests in fostering procreation and encouraging the traditional family structure ... our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," said Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr., who wrote the majority opinion.
The same-sex marriage issue does merit discussion. In the Maryland case, same-sex couples argued that the Maryland law is a form of sex discrimination. Like the court, I don't really see it this way. Currently everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex and no one has the right to marry someone of the same sex. We all have the one right; we're all denied the other. There's no discrimination against any one group. That this situation works out to the satisfaction of heterosexuals and not of gays is almost beside the point. Same-sex marriage is such a big expansion of the rights of everyone we need debate. What is the impact to society? We need to discuss it. Same-sex marriage is not the no-brainer some folks - both conservative and liberal - want it to be. In this case, the legislature is the proper place to begin.
Personally I have no problem with same-sex marriage. If two people want to create a stable, loving family unit why should society stop them? The high divorce and teen pregnancy rates seen in this country as well as the amount of spouse and child abuse do not lead me to think hetero-marriage is the noble, pro-family, society-sustaining, life-affirming institution traditionalists suggest it to be. The notion that marriage is for producing children has never been anything but antiquated. Senior citizens get married all the time without any intent (or capability) of producing offspring. All the hysterical, slippery-slope predictions suggested by traditionalists ("What's next? Marrying animals? Marrying dead people?") are nothing but canards. And please, please, please don't wave your Bible in my face and shout about biblical injunctions and abominations before God. Two verses plucked from a Pauline letter, devoid of any historical context, are not a sound basis for public policy. We need a 21st-century solution for all of society not just conservative Christians.
I expect the issue to surface again when the House of Delegates begins meeting in January. Gay couples are smarting from yesterday's ruling and religious zealots want to seal current law in the state constitution. The legislating will be difficult. But in the end, the fair and compassionate thing to do is ensure that everyone in Maryland is treated as equally as possible by the law.
I'll keep you posted.
K-
Interesting contrast to this situation in San Diego: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6941536
The mayor changed his mind about vetoing a city council resolution to join a suit challenging the state's legal and constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage. The mayor wept when he announced his decision. The reason: He had come face to face with the human dimension of the policy -- his own daughter is gay.
The argument that there is no discrimination involved here because same sex marriage is denied to everyone strikes me as disingenuous. Sure, it's true. But the absence of that choice is not relevant to you or me because we have no interest or inclination to exercise it because of who we are. On the other hand, the choice is denied to everyone who does have the interest or inclination to make it because of who they are.
This is no different, really, from prescribing race as a grounds to prohibit marriage. To extend the reasoning offered: Under that very recent and very widespread regime, all blacks and all whites had the right to marry persons of their own race; all blacks and all whites were denied the right to marry persons of other races. Thus, the thinking goes, there was no discrimination against any one group.
In that case, and from this historical vantage point, there is no doubt whatsoever that the proscription of interracial marriage was the product of discrimination based on notions of white supremacy. As with same-sex marriage, the discrimination was irrelevant to the great majority of people in the various racial groups because they had no interest in the right. The discrimination lay in the fact that it denied a right to a group of persons because of their identity or, as I put it above, because of who they are. If the Fourteenth Amendment means anything at all, this sort of treatment is unconstitutional.