Want to Protect Marriage? Then Recognize It

The latest gay marriage dramas bring us back to Proposition 8 and to New York State.

The anti-gay group ProtectMarriage.com -- don't be fooled by the name, they are not interested in protecting your marriage if you are gay or lesbian -- lost its case last week when it went to court claiming that Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, now retired, should have disclosed his sexuality and his relationship status. By not doing so, they claimed, the ruling Walker issued last year, finding Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional, was tainted and should be nullified.

Similar claims have been lodged before against jurists who were female or belonged to an ethnic minority, and they have never held up in court. This was the first time a gay judge was so impugned, but the result was the same: the federal judge who heard the case torpedoed the claim.

The response? ProtectMarriage.com said they would file an appeal.

Well, of course they will. Anti-gay groups like ProtectMarriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage are forging an entirely new level of judicial time wasting and obstructionism as they proceed through the court system. In the end, this will all be worth it, because so much legal precedent will have been set that when we win full-fledged equality before the law for ourselves and our families, the anti-gay side will have nowhere left to turn: They will have exhausted all avenues in their attempts to extinguish our liberties.

Meantime, in New York, marriage equality is, at this writing, within a mouse's whisker of becoming a reality for gay and lesbian families in that state. If that happens, the number of people living in states where marriage is available to all families, regardless of gender combination, will double -- as will the number of married same-sex families residing in marriage parity states, given how many New Yorkers have traveled elsewhere to tie the knot. (Their incentive to do so: Though New York does not, at the moment, offer to grant marriages to same-sex couples, the state will honor marriages bestowed on gays and lesbians in other jurisdictions. Why, thank you, and here's a tip of the leather cap to the long-neglected "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution, which DOMA, the anti-gay 1996 law, ignores.

Even if marriage in New York fails -- again, and as dramatically as it did in 2009 -- progress is evident: This time, only one Democrat, a Pentecostal minister, stood against marriage parity. And this time, unlike last, there were even some Republicans who supported the measure.

All the old arguments have been back in force as New York keeps us on tenterhooks and the courts deal another setback to the pernicious agenda of the anti-gay crowd seeking, desperately, to justify the inexcusable exercise in fear and bias that is Proposition 8.

"Protect marriage!" the anti-gay crowd cry out, convinced that if same-sex couples partake, the institution will somehow crumble, because... well.. who wants to belong to a club that welcomes queers?

And gay and lesbian families send up the same message, though for a different reason and with a different spin: Protect marriage! Don't let it devolve into a bulwark of bigotry! Let us participate!

The same arguments are hurled back and forth by both sides, with the occasional outrageous new spark breaking up the monotony. For example, New York legislators have heard from ex-wives of men who came out as gay, and ex-husbands of women who came out as lesbian. These ex-spouses object to same-sex marriage, evidently, because they seem to think that if gays and lesbians could marry, why, they'd... marry other gays and other lesbians, and not hapless straight people who'd later get their hearts broken.

Can't argue with that, I suppose, though it seems like an inane argument. (Er, you liked the fact that your spouse wasn't really into you and would rather have been with someone of the same gender? Of all the kinky stuff out there, that has to be the most sick and twisted thing I ever heard.)

And when it comes to the latest Prop. 8 court case -- and God knows, they are proliferating more quickly than CSI spinoffs -- ProtectMarriage.com wasn't simply handed a stinging rebuke for their attempt to paint Walker as a judge who was out to write the law to his own advantage. The group actually handed us a key admission: That marriage benefits same-sex couples. Otherwise, their argument -- that Walker and his long-term same-sex partner stood to gain something if they were to marry one day -- makes no sense.

Thank you! Finally! After hearing that we're "selfish" (for, uhm, wanting to take responsibility for the welfare of the person we love, and, you know, provide for them) and that we don't deserve marriage because we are incapable of long-term commitment (this, from straights who can't stay married longer than five years on average), we finally hear... in court, mind you... that gay couples would benefit from marriage equality.

That's right. In case you didn't get the message, we actually want to marry each other because it's good and right and natural for us to do so. It enhances our relationships. All of which casts homophobic opposition to marriage equality in a new light: Are they really worried that we will somehow scratch the paint on their shiny, sacred marital institution? Or are they just loath to give us something that we need so desperately and would appreciate so much?

Is this really a question of "protecting" marriage? Or is it a matter of depriving and hurting a detested minority? Because if the concern genuinely is for the well being of marriage as a social institution, the more the merrier! Better still: The more participants, the stronger, deeper, and more effectual as a social cement marriage will be.

A Simple Solution

For those who worry about the failing state of marriage, one simple solution would be to offer federal recognition of same-sex families that are already married at the state level. If the anti-gay 1996 "Defense of Marriage" Act were to be repealed, up to 80,000 families would gain recognition as married overnight, according to the Williams Institute--a small but significant bump in America's official marriage rate.

"If the federal government recognizes legal marriages by same-sex couples, between 50,000 and 80,000 same-sex couples would be recognized for purposes of federal law," Research Director M.V. Lee Badgett said in a press release from last February. "These couples would be treated as married by the tax code, social security programs, federal employee benefits, and many other programs.

"If civil union-like relationships are also included, another 85,000 same-sex couples would also be covered by those programs," added Badgett.

The Institute has proven that gays and lesbians, far from being party animals whose only interest in marriage is to piss off straights (an argument similar to, and as stupid as, the notion that gays "choose" their sexual orientation just to get the goats of the heterosexual majority), there is a deep and constant and very human impulse to marry that gays share with their straight brethren.

For one thing, when straights get their boots off the necks of our families, we tend to get married. Imagine that! We "promiscuous" gays, who have "no interest" in long-term committed relationships because we're too busy drooling with lust, actually go out and tie the knot.

"Approximately 50,000 same-sex couples have married, based on the number of couples who have married in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire, according to administrative data from those states, and used estimates for same-sex couples marrying in California and the District of Columbia," a news release from the Institute said.

"A previous study of same-sex couples conducted last year estimated that 80,000 same- sex couples reported being legally married," the release added. "This suggests that as many as 30,000 same- sex couples might have married in other countries, most likely in Canada."

What do you know? Gays and lesbians taking on all the extra expense and organizational burden of traveling far and wide just to say their vows. that's pretty powerful stuff for a group that the bigots claim have no capacity for love and commitment.

"Another 85,000 same-sex couples have entered civil unions or domestic partnerships (i.e. those statuses with the same state rights and obligations of marriage) in Vermont, California, New Jersey, Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington, and Nevada," the release noted. "Altogether, these figures suggest that 9% of same-sex couples have married in the United States, along with as many as 5% more in other countries; and 15% are in civil union-like legal relationships.

"Altogether, 28% of the 581,300 same-sex couples in the United States are in legally recognized relationships that are marriages or a state-level equivalent."

Just imagine how the marriage rolls would burst at the seams if only gay and lesbian families were given the same fundamental family rights that heterosexuals seem to think belong to themselves, and themselves alone. There wouldn't be enough parchment in a kingdom to inscribe the names of all the happy, free couples.

In other words, if anti-gay bigots stopped "protecting" marriage from us, marriage would soar -- quantitatively, and, given how we've proven ourselves in the face of such dire adversity, qualitatively too.

So, again, I have to ask: How is denying loving, committed couples actually "protecting" anything, least of all marriage? Isn't that like MENSA telling people with IQs of 180 and above to forget it?

Oh, but that's right, this isn't MENSA. This is marriage, this is a highly emotional brouhaha for all concerned, and reason is usually left off the guest list. This isn't about doing the smart thing. It's about bias, bigotry, and, to a great degree, faith-based exclusion based on the claim that we're "sinners" looking to solemnize "immoral" relationships.

In other words, the only thing being "protected" here is heterosexual snobbishness. Putting it another way: Marriage is the country club of human rights.