A comment on the California Supreme Court decision recognizing Same-Sex Marriage
Last week California joined Massachusetts, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Belgium, and Canada in recognizing same-sex marriages as legal. This is, of course, a limited and perhaps temporary victory. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) remains on the Federal books, signed by Clinton, though lacking force of law. Some religious groups and political conservatives would still like to mount an amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage in the terms claimed by DOMA – between one man and one woman. If this happened, it would presumably supersede anything the states do. The same organizations in California are busy preparing another version of the Knight Initiative, this time to amend the State Constitution, on whose equal protection clause was based the California Supreme Court decision of last week. The timing of the decision is not very good for us. It will be used to galvanize the congregations and communities who hate us to show up at the polls and support the initiative, which earned over a million signatures placing it on the ballot.
The dissenting opinion in the case mentioned that the ruling violated the traditional concept of marriage. This notion that there is a traditional definition of marriage is widespread among the public, in news articles, and certainly in right-wing propaganda. It is based on a peculiarly narrow and ethnocentric worldview, in which a specific tradition (i.e., mid-twentieth century Judeo-Christian middle class) is represented as everyone’s tradition. If someone says something is ‘traditional’, they have to be able to say whose tradition they are talking about. In our country, there are many traditions, including a tradition of same-sex marriage found among Zuni, Hopi, Navajo, and many other first nation peoples. The civil code has nothing to do with any particular spiritual tradition, although it draws from Anglo-European culture in banning polygamy. The ancient authors of the Old Testament were polygamists. If somebody says our marriage law is based on the Bible, it ain’t so. In fact, the “establishment” clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution says there should be a “wall of separation” between Church and State. In other words, we cannot base civil law on any religious law. So, it doesn’t matter what the Bible says or they think it says.
Any heterosexuals claiming that some harm comes to their marital arrangements from us have to be able to provide evidence of it. I’ve never heard a single such case, in which a direct causal link was substantiated between an instance of gay marriage (which doesn’t yet exist in any significant numbers) and a straight divorce, spousal battery, infidelity, abandonment, child abuse, or other marital problem. Their problems are of their own creation. The harm has all been on our side – no insurance benefits, no hospital visiting rights, no adoption rights, no immigration privileges for partners, no tax break, and on and on. Anyone who says we are not second class citizens doesn’t understand their own citizenship.
Even Barack Obama has said he thought marriage should be between
a man and a woman. We can expect anyone running for office to try to avoid controversy.
However, he did not say he thought his view or that of his church should dictate
everyone’s lives. Thus far, the majority rules, and they don’t support
our struggle for equality, but they don’t have any ammunition on their
side, other than fear and prejudice. For the moment, they don’t have the
law. Eventually, these folks will have to turn their energies to real issues
that actually impact them, such as the train wreck of the economy, the rapid
degradation of the environment, run-away effects of climate change, creeping
loss of their liberties and privileges, and endless war. So I think our situation
will evolve, but I suspect we will be fighting this battle for a long time to
come.