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Purging Poison from the Gay Marriage Debate |
Current rating: 0 |
by Kimberlie Kranich
Email: kakranich (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
16 Jul 2004
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Since the early 1990s, queer folks have been organizing for the legal right to marry our same-sex partners. Our courage, our spirit, our basic human rights and our movement are being ignored in the debate over gay marriage. |
I feel used and spiritually violated by most Republicans and Democrats in the debate over gay marriage. Their arguments are poisonous to my queer soul. Courage is lacking.
The Republican position, with some good individual exceptions, claims that gay marriage threatens traditional marriage. How far back does their definition of traditional marriage go? Are they referring to the time when a wife was the property of her husband? During this time, for example, it was not legally possible for a husband to rape his wife. Or perhaps they are referring to the time when traditional marriage meant marriage between people of the same race. It was only 35 years ago that the last law banning interracial marriage was overturned.
Democrats as a group are claiming that the Republican push for a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage has no chance of passing and is therefore an election strategy to divert attention from other issues and mobilize conservative voters to vote Republican. This oft-repeated claim is true in part, but it is also only half of the truth. Where is a defense of the basic human rights of gay people in this debate?
It is highly offensive to all queer people and especially to those same-sex couples who have been actively fighting for legal marriage rites since the early 1990s to claim the Republican amendment strategy is merely an election ploy.
This is a real issue for us. We want and deserve full equality under the law. To deny our dreams and to discount our burgeoning movement and its influence is an insult that is damaging to the spirit of queer folks everywhere.
To write-off the Republican effort to protect man-woman marriage through a constitutional amendment because it doesn’t have enough votes to pass at this time is foolish and ignorant of history. Major changes take a long time to enact. I’m sickened that 48 of 100 Senators voted in favor of amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage! How long would it take if we laughed off their efforts before the vote count became 60 Senators in favor of the amendment?
I very much agree with the Republican strategy to try to enact a Constitutional amendment, although I am on the other side of the issue. Their strategy is an acknowledgement as well as a reactionary effort to the real gains queer folks have made in seeking legal same-sex marriage. Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage May 17, 2004. The Republicans are smart to be scared.
And, yes, I agree with them when they say that same-sex marriage threatens traditional marriage. Of course it does. It expands the definition. I am happy to threaten a traditional institution that needs to change. The day will come when we say we are married and the person we have told this to will no longer know if we mean to a person of the opposite sex or same sex. This is threatening to many. I thank my father for this insight.
Politicians and liberals who supposedly support gay rights and then stop short when it comes to gay marriage disappoint me. Instead, they say they favor the lesser civil unions. Why don’t we deserve full equality and why start with the compromise position of civil unions?
President Clinton laid the groundwork for this compromise position when in the early 1990s he signed the Defense of Marriage Act which defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman and allowed states to deny same-sex marriage licenses of other states. This was a reactionary move after same-sex couples fought for legal recognition in Hawaii and were almost victories. Our movement is powerful!
These same Democrats show no courage at all when they say the states should decide who can marry and who cannot. This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Racists used the same argument during the school desegregation debates in the south in the 1940s and 1950s. Segregationists were red-hot mad when the Supreme Court decided on May 17, 1954 that segregation in the public schools was to be no more. Minority-rights are easily trampled on when individual states are left to decide their fate.
The Supreme Court will decide the issue of same-sex marriage and I intend to keep fighting and educating people so when the court does decide, it decides in our favor. I hope you’ll join me.
Please contact me if you'd like to join our local movement to legalize same-sex marraige. Thanks. kakranich (at) yahoo.com |
This work is in the public domain. |
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Re: Purging Poison from the Gay Marriage Debate |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
17 Jul 2004
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Kimberlie,
I am sorry for my earlier comments. I am totally opposed to Gay Marriage. I think the country needs to have this debate and decide once and for all.
I do not believe it should be decided by the liberal justices of one state and therefore every state must accept the license issued by the most liberal state in the union.
Much will need to be discussed other than the morality of the union. I am interested to know why you feel your union needs to recoginized by the majority as a marriage.
I do wish you and your partner well and I meant no disrespect by my earlier comments. Sometimes I carried away with my own sense of humor.
Jack |
