Straight people who support same-sex marriage rights frequently identify themselves as "allies." Many mention gay friends, family members, and acquaintances on whose behalf they advocate and say things like, "This doesn't really affect me personally" and, "This isn't really my cause." "But I support you."
I get this all the time from acquaintances, who commiserated with my wife and me over the passage of Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban, and who express sympathy over other setbacks to marriage equality around the country. As grateful as I am for support and allegiance -- and for the hard work of those who promote gay rights as part of a broader program of social justice -- I worry that my straight friends may be missing the big picture and that if we don't collectively pay attention, we could all suffer in the end. The marriage equality debate is not just about gays and lesbians; it's about the freedom of everyone to set the terms of their own life.
The ongoing federal trial to challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 8 is offering a detailed view of the anti-gay marriage movement that goes beyond their campaign slogan -- marriage is between a man and a woman -- to show exactly what they mean by "traditional" marriage. What's becoming clear is that gay marriage is the wedge they use to advance an even more ambitious conservative social agenda. On the most basic level, they're fighting the Gender Wars 2.0.
Defenders of the ban on same-sex marriage believe that husbands and wives have specific roles, determined by their sex, and that without role models of two opposite-sex parents, children will grow up to think they can do whatever they want. As they see it, same-sex marriage is the outcome of individual liberty and the right to pursue happiness -- gone too far. They target all who resist the idea that biology is destiny. No matter that the bulk of academic research shows that gays and lesbians make good parents. To the so-called marriage defenders, science is no match for sacred texts and the way things once were and are supposed to be.
There's a reason the pro-Prop. 8 defense team fought to keep this trial from being broadcast on the internet. They prefer the ballot box to the witness stand because their message is far more persuasive and well cloaked when it's delivered in carefully crafted sound bytes about defining marriage and protecting the family. In a trial, however, the reasoning behind their pitch must stand up to legal scrutiny. If one man and one woman are necessary because procreation is the "central or defining purpose" of marriage, as the lawyers defending the constitutional ban have argued, then what do they really think about straight couples who choose not to have children? Should unwed mothers be forced into wedlock? This is where it gets scary -- for everyone!
Such questions didn't come up much during the 2008 campaign because the anti-gay marriage forces largely succeeded in controlling the terms of the debate. Frank Schubert, head of the PR firm that ran the Yes on 8 campaign, in a recap panel presentation to the 2009 American Association of Political Consultants Pollie Award Conference last year, explained how they crafted the message. Schubert noted that since most voters are moved primarily by self-interest, and since, in preliminary focus groups, most heterosexual subjects indicated that this issue had nothing to do with them and that they didn't see how same-sex marriage affected their own lives (sound familiar?), the best approach to move such voters was to appeal to unknown scary consequences, fabricated or not. As his associate Jeff Flint put it, "Something could happen that you may not like so you need to vote yes [on Prop. 8] to stop that from happening." In the arena of political advertising, outright lies are deemed completely acceptable as long as the message excites your base and frightens the middle 'undecided' voter over to your side. We've seen it happen over and over again.
At the outset of the struggle over the gay marriage ban ballot measure in the summer of 2008, the Yes on 8 leadership found that "a campaign that was simply an affirmation of traditional marriage" -- Schubert's phrasing -- would fail. So they turned the debate around, spinning yarns about a world in which gays bullied straight people. Even if, their line of reasoning went, you don't think your own marriage would be jeopardized by same-sex marriage, you need to worry that your way of life will be threatened and your children will be harmed. Roll out the commercials. Gay marriage will be taught in schools! Churches will be shut down! Little Susie will want to marry a princess! Their scare tactics worked, and Proposition 8 passed.
In court, inflammatory statements must be backed up, and the Prop. 8 defenders must explain what harm will come from legalizing of gay marriage. When defense attorney Charles Cooper was asked point blank by the judge in a pre-trial hearing to say how same-sex marriage would harm what's been called throughout the proceedings "opposite-sex marriage," he couldn't have been more clear: "My answer is: I don't know. I don't know."
Most Americans won't see the anti-gay marriage movement with its mask off and may not realize just how radically out of step its views are with the culture at large. George Skelton, writing in the Los Angeles Times during the first week of the Prop. 8 trial expressed surprise at the defense team's emphasis on procreation as the defining feature of marriage: "In the heated Prop. 8 campaign, I don't recall proponents pushing the idea that gay people don't qualify for marriage licenses because the main purpose of wedlock is child production. If they had, I suspect some straight voters would have been offended." He acknowledged that "admittedly I didn't pay much attention to the Proposition 8 campaign in 2008. I figured it was a gut vote for most people."
It's time for straight voters to see that they're being had. The enforcement of "traditional" marriage -- one primary goal of the anti-gay marriage movement -- would affect the entire population, not just because marriage is a basic civil right, which of course it is, but because Americans should be free decide how to build their own family life. While many thrive in conventional roles as fathers out in the workplace and mothers in the home, not everyone wants -- or is even financially able -- to live that way, and no one should force them to do so.
On the website set up by the Courage Campaign, a progressive advocacy group, to liveblog the Prop. 8 trial, in a thread for discussion participants to introduce themselves, "Ryn" posted the following instructive story of how she, a young straight evangelical Christian, came to support same-sex marriage:
[W]hen you realize that you've spent your childhood having religious authority figures telling you that listening to certain kinds of music or watching certain movies was of the devil, when you figure out that's bunk you tend to wonder what other things they've been taking out of context in scripture. You're also less likely to listen to organizations who claim they want to protect traditional family when you've spent your childhood hearing those same organizations being cited as the authority for why you, as a woman, should aspire to be nothing more than a housewife because that's what God designed the traditional family to be. By their definitions, my desire to continue a career after I get married means I'm threatening the institution of the family too, so I don't see why I'm supposed to get worked up about their claim that same-sex marriage is going to threaten the institution of the family.
She concludes with the reflexive disclaimer, "I'm straight, Prop 8 doesn't directly effect me," but her own account points to the slippery slope the same-sex marriage ban and other anti-gay marriage initiatives could send us down.
Straight people, listen up! When marriage "protectors" point to scripture and tradition to justify their antagonism to same-sex marriage, you need to ask yourselves whether you want to turn back the clock on centuries of reforms that have brought about a rich array of possible roles for women and for men. If your answer is no, then you need to embrace same-sex marriage as a benefit to society as a whole -- a continuation and expansion of American ideals. Next time someone asks where you stand, say that marriage equality is for everyone. And tell them you take this personally.
Follow Audrey Bilger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AudreyBilger
Prop 8 deniers lose again. The end.
40 years of cultural perscriptions by the left have led to 37% of all children are born out of wedlock, 70% of African American children, and 50% of Hispanic children.. and falling rates of marriage overall, cohabitation and un-chosen childlessness. The social scientific evidence for divorce and Fatherless-ness is in. It leads to sky high crime, depression, suicide, violence, gang activity, and a perpetual cycle of child abandonment.
For gays to throw the entire institution up for redefinition is the height of self absorption.
We can and must rebuild the social institution of marriage. Its important that all children are born into married households with their own natural parents. This standard should be advanced not undermined. The institution of marriage is infinitely more important than a vehicle for gay inclusion.
Onward to equality, Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA.
In New England many states support marriage equality and life just goes on. It's time America.
I am a woman, married to a man. I'm 50 and have kidney failure; i can't have kids. Even trying would literally kill me. My husband had a vasectomy years ago and isn't able to father any more kids, either (he has grown kids from previous relationships). There is absolutely no chance that we could procreate, no matter how much we try.
Does this, then, invalidate our marriage to these people, or do we get a bye because I'm disabled and would die from pregnancy?
What about seniors and other couples who are past child-bearing years? Do they just live together without being able to marry? I suppose the seniors can all move to Washington state, where we have an excellent domestic partnership law that includes seniors in opposite-sex couples as well as same-sex couples.
So yes, this definitely affects me personally'; if they win in California, they'll take it nationwide, anywhere that there's a good same-sex marriage or domestic partnership law. Watch out, everybody in the other 49 states - a theocratic juggernaut is coming if they win.
Having marriage equality is long overdue and our nation has more important and serious issues that must be addressed. There has been an enormous amount of money and time spent on this simple constitutional issue when it could have been used for better purposes.
YES - and I never agreed to files income taxes to a Theocracy, so if the I.R.S. wants our tax dollars, they better make sure ALL AMERICANS have their constitutional right to CIVIL MARRIAGE.
So let this trial continue – and let coverage of this trial remain open and extensive. The more this trial is discussed, the more the theocrats have to explain themselves – something which they clearly cannot do to the satisfaction of the vast majority of Americans, who would be outraged by the abolition of contraception, the criminalization of divorce, and the limitation of marriage to only child-bearing couples…
PHILIP CHANDLER
Fanned.
The theocrats are being forced to concede that the logical consequences of their line of reasoning is that childless married heterosexual couples should not be permitted to remain married; that infertile heterosexual couples should not be permitted to marry; and that elderly heterosexual couples should not be permitted to marry. Although this trial is not being televised, it IS being widely publicized, to the benefit of heterosexuals as well as gay persons.
CONTINUED...
These people snatched marriage away from the gay citizens of California by running a fear-based advertising campaign that featured a "parade of horribles" -- children being "taught about homosexuality" (I guess that since no-fault divorce became legal in California, schools in that state also teach about divorce), children being forced to read books such as "Prince and Prince" (which was NEVER a compulsory book in the school curriculum), children suddenly taking it into their heads to "become gay" (this was perhaps the most ludicrous claim made by the "Yes on 8" crowd), engaged couples suddenly deciding to break off their engagements, etc.
The primitive logic and theocratic reasoning that this crowd was able to use to manipulate the voters just doesn't cut it in a court of law before a federal judge, and particularly not before a federal judge such as US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who recently married a couple in which one spouse was 95 years old and the other spouse was 83 years old ("I did not demand that they prove they intended to engage in procreation," stated this judge).
CONTINUED...
Regards and fanned!
As has been said time and time before -- if those against gay marraige succeed, who will be next, will it be you?
Ms. Bilger, do you really mean "everyone" or just heterosexuals and homosexuals?
And please do more research on the arguments against same sex marriage. For example, "straight couples who choose not to have children" has been addressed and rebutted. There are many places on the Internet where you can find the response to this line of argument in the debate.
I've done copious reading, and I haven't found an effective "rebuttal" yet. Please enlighten me.
The rebuttals I have seen on this issue are tax reason to the point of being fatally flawed. Certainly Prof. Robert George’s New Natural Law Theory argument that there is a difference in childless marriages between straights and gays is ridiculous. The New York Supreme Court decision was even more ridiculous. If these are what you meant, your side will lose eventually. Logic is not on your side.
There is no significant difference between straights like my friends Andy and Debbie who married planning not to have or raise kids, and my same sex marriage with Lansing also childless by choice. The only difference is gender, and the states have no compelling interest, nor even a minimally rational interest, in deciding how any couples like us decide to commit to a legal union.
Thank the Big Bang we all live in Massachusetts. I feel sorry for Californians with their three classes of couples system.
You might want to rethink that reasoning.
There are many people who that marriage is all about procreation. And they're concerned that same sex marriages threaten the sanctity of procreating marriages. So let's pass a law stipulating only those who procreate can get married? They must do so within three years of their marriage or they're reclassified as domestic partners. Straight and gay domestic partners will receive all of the same benefits at the state and federal levels. If a straight couple is reclassified, they'll be forced to refile past taxes reflecting their new domestic partnership status, paying any penalties, fines, etc.
If you're incapable of conceiving kids due to age or infertility - you can't get married. But you can be domestic partners and you're free to adopt!
You'll also only be allowed ONE marriage. Divorce will be illegal. This strengthens the sanctity of marriage by forcing you to carefully evaluate who you plan to be with. If you marry a bad person, get counseling and work through it. You made the choice to be with them, so honor your vows. If you married and were then reclassified, you used up your marriage eligibility. I suppose we could make an exception for spouses killed while serving in the military in a war. But you must procreate within three years.
How's that for a great way to protect the sanctity of marriage?
Let the noise from outraged heteros commence in 3....2.....1
On another note, I am so proud that the Hawaii Senate today made a veto-proof yes vote to allow civil unions for same-sex and heterosexual couples. The House needs to pass the bill with a 2/3 majority to prevent the Republican Governor from imposing a veto on the bill.
However, I DO enjoy the discomfort the California "Marriage Protection Act" is giving the bible-thumpers. It's hitting them right where they live, with their own beliefs, showing their hypocrisy.