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- Respected Neighbor
- Pawtucket, RI
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| Prejudice has no place in the law |
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on 03-01-2009 22:26 
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Politics as Usual by Jim Baron
For more than five hours on Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee listened to people fight over a single word.
It is a vestige of an ancient struggle rooted in culture, religion and the fear and hatred of those who are different, but now the argument has boiled down to a single word: marriage. More specifically, marriage between same-sex couples.
Because as the debate has dragged over the centuries, becoming more intense in the last decade or so, it has evolved from the stoning of homosexuals, to imprisonment, to ostracism to the grudging acceptance we appear to be coming to today.
It is acceptable for gays to exist, society seems to say these days, and they shouldn't be discriminated against in employment, or housing, and it is OK for them to make contracts, have hospital visitations and survivor's rights, but they can't have the word marriage, dammit. That is where we draw the line.
Opponents of same-sex marriage even call their attempts to write bigotry into the law "Defense of Marriage."
I don't get it. What is the offense being defended against?
There is nothing on this earth I value more than my marriage to the most wonderful woman in the world. But for the life of me, I can't imagine how that would be threatened or cheapened or compromised by allowing gay couples to declare their love and have it recognized by society.
The only reason I can think of that anyone could believe it would be is bigoted hatred of homosexuals. I am sure there are people reading this who are saying to themselves: "I am not a bigot, but..." Sorry, but you are kidding yourself. The "but" betrays you. You are a bigot; your judgment is being affected by your dislike, disapproval or distaste for another group of people.
Deal with it. I don't mean that as the arrogant dismissal for which that phrase has come to be used lately. I mean really deal with it. Think about it. Give it careful and, yes, prayerful consideration if that is your wont, and get to the root of exactly what you object to about same-sex marriage. If the best you can come up with is that you are offended by other people's sexual orientation, then what would you call it?
I understand that blacks object to correlations between their civil rights struggle and the attempts of gay people to assert their full rights, but it is the same bugaboo: The reluctance of society at large to acknowledge that "These people are equal to me. They are the same as me."
How is not allowing homosexuals to avail themselves of a marriage license that much different from the days when black people were not allowed to use rest rooms or water fountains, eat at a lunch counter or rent an apartment? It is not a matter that they can not use it for its intended function - fashioning a loving household, and in many cases, a family -only that they may not. That means society has the problem, not them. The only thing in their way is prejudice, and prejudice has no place in the law.
I wasn't able to attend the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday night because I was covering other assignments, but while I was down in the basement writing those stories, I was able to keep one ear on the proceedings upstairs in the hearing room on television. (Capitol TV is worth its weight in gold; don't let anyone tell you any different.)
Many of those who opposed same-sex marriage based their arguments on the teachings of Christianity and the Bible. I am a Christian and do my fallible best to follow the teachings of the Bible. But for me or you or anyone else, the relationship with God and the Bible is a personal and individual one. The minute you start trying to force your beliefs or your interpretation of the Bible or other religious teachings on anyone else, trouble starts. When a government attempts to do that, it is the Devil's work.
History has shown that anytime a government has tried to enforce the tenets of any religion, whether it be Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or any other faith, no good ever comes of it. Think Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, Hindus and Muslims in India, and do I even have to mention the Middle East, now and back through the centuries? Persecution, war, torture and terrorism are all fruits of that tree.
The members of Senate Judiciary, and all the other public officials in this country, do not take an oath to uphold the Bible. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the secular laws of the state and nation. In 1995, Rhode Island passed a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. That, not a verse from Leviticus, is what should guide the members of the committee on this issue.
It is interesting to note that in the provision for freedom of religion in the RI Constitution (Article I, Sec. 3), it declares a person's mind "free" and says, "all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by CIVIL INCAPACITATIONS, tend to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness." (Emphasis mine) The text implies freedom of the mind in religious matters, but the idea works on this issue by extension.
Marriage is not a religious institution; it is first and foremost a civil contract. That is why you have to go to City Hall and sign the papers first, then you can walk down the aisle of a church, if you choose to. The church part is not a necessity. The whole thing can be done at City Hall or in a private home and nobody needs to say the word God out loud until the honeymoon.
That's why talk of separate "civil unions" for same sex couples is a silly idea. ALL marriages are civil unions, the religious part is just icing on the cake. You are not married unless the state says you are married, the priest, minister or rabbi notwithstanding.
The pushing of "civil union" as an attempted compromise shows that society seems to be moving toward the place where the concept of committed coupledom for gay men and lesbians is OK, but centuries of carefully inculcated fear and loathing of homosexuals just will not allow people to clear the last semantic hurdle and call it what it is: marriage.
Judging by the way referenda questions on same-sex marriage consistently come down on the side of no, even in reliably if not radically liberal places like California, we are going to be fighting over the word for at least a few years to come.
As I said half-jokingly last Thursday when someone asked if I was going to cover the Judiciary Committee hearing on same-sex marriage, I'll go to the one next year. |
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