Before winter break, I was talking with a friend, when the issue of same-sex marriage came up. We talked about the various ballot measures banning it until, at one point, we both sighed. She said, "we should just get government out of marriage entirely -- everyone should just get civil unions." This has become an increasingly popular opinion among many socially liberal people. They seem to believe that by changing the name of the government-recognized institution, we will somehow be closer to equality, or that opposition to marriage equality will disappear.
Neither of these things would happen. In fact, I believe that abandoning the term "marriage" or jettisoning government involvement in marriage entirely would in fact be a step backwards.
Between 1954 and 1970, as southern states faced the prospect of having to integrate its public schools, many of them instead chose to close them. (They, instead, offered families vouchers for private institutions which were permitted to discriminate.) The problem with segregation, we should remember, was not simply that black schools were often underfunded, but also that segregation served as a badge of inferiority for African-Americans.
In important ways, the situation today, with regard to marriage, is analogous. There is increasing pressure for the implementation of marriage equality: an increasing number of states are granting same-sex marriages, there is a large and growing segment of the population that supports marriage equality, and courts have become more willing to strike down discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Just as southern states faced the prospect of integration, Americans now face the possibility of full marriage equality. Furthermore, just as segregation served as a badge of inferiority for African-Americans, the refusal to permit same-sex marriages is undoubtedly marks same-sex couples (and, by extension, gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals) as deemed inferior by society.
So why is marriage so important? Because marriage has historically carried the stamp of society's approval. It sends a message not just to those lesbian, gay, or bisexual people who want to get married now, but to LGB youth everywhere. The achievement of marriage equality would send a message to gay youth that they are, in fact, welcome in society and that marriage and love and stability are all things that are not reserved only for heterosexuals, but are a possibility for them too.
I am not saying that those who want to separate government from marriage are homophobic. I do believe, however, that if they achieved that goal, life would be harder for all lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. The elimination of the possibility of the term "marriage" applying to gay couples on a federal level would send a devastating message -- much in the same way that the South's abandonment of its public school system sent a devastating message to African-Americans. Eliminating civil marriage would do more than force same-sex couples to rely on (often homophobic) religious institutions in order to get married: rather, it would withdraw the prospect of at last removing society's stigma.
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Your argument about separate but not equal is good, but I think a better example of LGBT civil rights is women's suffrage. Women were denied something basic that all men enjoyed. They were denied this for no discernible reason other than it had always been that way. I am hoping we won't have to amend the constitution to pass laws that allow LGBT to marry, but we might.
The government no more defines social approval of sexual orientation than it does of my contract with my landlord. The government legislates. The government defines legal requirements and obligations. The government does not define public thought and sentiment, although public thought and sentiment may define the government.
However, it would be a step away from the idea that government has a central role in expressing the approval or disapproval of society. The action would be to withdraw official stigma, replacing it with official neutrality. For homosexuals, the end result would likely still be acceptance. Time is on their side, because the young don't stigmatize homosexuals the way much of my generation did at that age. Lingering stigma would still be condemned in the media.
However, if this were the only issue on which the government disengaged from the culture wars, it would be seen as a refusal to bestow acceptance, by a government that remained the arbiter of such things. That would be shameful.
Marriage is a religious or cultural institution. It has no reason for government to be involved with it.
The idea is to get government out of the business of sanctifying marriages entirely, for everyone. My marriage would be redefined as a "civil union" in the eyes of the government, you would gain access to exactly the same legal status, and you would still be able to get "married" in the eyes of Unitarians, Quakers, and the United Church of Christ.
It's more like abandoning the "public accommodation" doctrine than accepting full-fledged "separate but equal". Those denominations would perform marriages, but other denominations would continue to discriminate. Likewise, after Brown v Board of Education but before the Civil Rights Act of 64, school segregation had been declared unconstitutional but lunch counters could put up and enforce "whites only" signs. Of course, even if the government calls you "married", under the free-exercise clause the religious groups will still be able to discriminate.
What if we long ago made it ILLEGAL to be black. If found to be black, you could be imprisoned if you were lucky, executed if you weren't, That is what gay people have faced for centuries-- murder, imprisonment, vilification, torture.
And in any case, you would be ostracized and marginalized from non-black society, and perhaps denied employment in a number of fields. No white jury would convict a white person of killing a black man, just like Matthew Shepherd was killed. And don't forget: your family, your marriage don't exist legally. the facts of your life are irrelevant.
Does that sound like anything familiar? Oh, wait a minute. It IS familiar. It has happened consistently to black people in this country, and still happens.
At least as a black person, you have the right to live your life OPENLY as a black person. there are black people to support and nurture you, and give you strength against a prejudiced world.
That is something that has been denied to gay people until very recently, and is still the case in much of the world.
Prejudice is prejudice. Oppression is oppression. It is exactly about civil rights-- the right to be treated without discrimination by your government, and the insistence by our government that society reflect and support the principle of equal treatment before the law.
You're right that most gay people have the option of hiding their sexuality to avoid discrimination, but there are problems with that, too. It means people insult you to your face because they don't realize you're a member of the group they're insulting. A black gay man I worked with once summed it up this way: "As a black teenager I had to endure taunts from bigots about my skin color. But at least my parents always supported me and explained that being black wasn't bad. I also heard homophobic remarks from bigots, and when I got home my parents told me those were true, because they didn't realize I was gay."
I do care that my government denies me equal protection under the law. We need to overturn laws that requires the government to discriminate against gay Americans.
In your desegregation analogy, calling for getting the government out of marriage isn't like the south's attempts to get rid of public education and replace with white only private schools to fight desegregation, it is instead more analogous to if, when desegregation came, the "whites only" public schools were all shut down and only the previously "colored" schools were left in operation with all students, regardless of race, attending.
Segregation was touted as "separate but equal", which we all know was bogus. If blacks were the same as whites, why did they have to sit at the back of the bus? Or drink from a different water fountain or use a different restroom?
Just like African Americans, gays and lesbians want to be included in 'One Nation with liberty and justice for all' , Not 'One nation with liberty and justice for some'