Friday June 16, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 24 |
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Sunday, Mar 21, 2010
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THE PATH TO MARRIAGE EQUALITY |
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| THE PATH TO MARRIAGE EQUALITY | |
| by Brie Gyncild - Special to the SGN
It's a messy business, fighting for our rights. Our opponents are panicked, watching public opinion shift with the generations, and witnessing the greater acceptance of Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, and Transgender individuals and families. In their struggle to deny us full equality, the anti-Gay crowd have had to get creative. When the Vermont Supreme Court ordered the state's legislature to provide equal rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples, the legislature had two options: rewrite the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel, separate status for same-sex couples. Out of fear and ignorance, they opted to create a new bureaucracy that imitated marriage but that denied same-sex couples the dignity of the term. Civil unions did not placate the right, nor did they satisfy those who sought marriage equality. Legislators who voted for civil unions faced tight races and angry crowds. And couples who entered into civil unions faced legal uncertainties. Politicians failed to learn from Vermont, and instead latched on to the idea of civil unions. In theory, they would offer some legal protections without compromising the special status of heterosexual couples. But civil unions and domestic partnership are not enough, and they're certainly not the goal. Here in Washington, we await a decision from our state Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the state's 1998 law barring same-sex couples from marriage. We hope the court will issue an opinion immediately granting marriage rights to same-sex couples. But the court could find the 1998 law unconstitutional and, as the Vermont court did, direct the legislature to find a remedy. If the court directs the legislature to provide the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples, the legislature should pass a marriage bill. However, we know that some legislators will propose a separate, lesser status for same-sex couples instead. As a community, we must make it clear to the legislature and to the public that the only way to end discrimination in marriage is to end discrimination in marriage. Evan Wolfson, the Executive Director of Freedom to Marry (www.freedom tomarry.org), describes four reasons that full marriage is the only appropriate remedy: 1. The word marriage is itself a protection. Throughout the world, everyone knows what marriage is. The word carries with it an understanding of a legitimate, respected, and recognized relationship. No parallel status has such clarity or offers the same security. 2. Marriage is a system, recognized from state to state and country to country. A marriage doesn't change name or meaning when you move across a border. Civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other attempts to provide partial protection leave a patchwork of uncertainty. 3. Though civil unions and domestic partnership provide some protection for some people on the journey toward fairness and inclusion, these gains have come about only because of the push for legal marriage. Civil unions are an interruption of the journey, potentially delaying full marriage rights for many years to come. 4. Legislators don't win any friends with civil unions. Those who are opposed to LGBT rights are opposed to marriage and civil unions (and adoption rights and so on). Most of the anti-Gay amendments we've seen in the past couple of years have not only sought to bar us from marriage, but to ensure that nothing like marriage is available to us. We've seen great things in Massachusetts. After the Supreme Judicial Court granted marriage rights, anti-Gay forces narrowly passed an amendment banning marriage for same-sex couples in Massachusetts. In the 2004 elections, some among those forces lost their seats to pro-equality candidates, but everyone who stood on the side of equality won re-election. When the amendment came up for its second vote this fall, it lost by a dramatic margin. Several legislators changed their minds after witnessing firsthand that full marriage equality helped real families and hurt no one. Better yet, polls in Massachusetts show clearly that support for marriage equality continues to grow among the public. Brie Gyncild regularly writes a column on behalf of Equal Rights Washington for the SGN. ERW is committed to working for full marriage rights for all Washingtonians. Visit www.equalrightswashington.org for more information. |
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