Debating gay marriage and Proposition 8

While Stafford Betty’s agonizing in print (“Debating Gay Marriage and Proposition 8, October 31, 2008) appears reasonable to him, I would like to remind him and your readers that Separate But Equal no longer is an acceptable position under US law. Prop 8 would remove a civil right that the California Supreme Court has ruled to exist under the State Constitution as it is written.

Would he support a similar move to render future interracial marriages illegal? By his own words, “Why is a mere word so important?”

I find the struggle with gay marriage in this article very typical. I would like to urge the author to look back to the Old Testament--and early Israel--marriage as we know it did not exist--it was multiple wives. Marriage evolved, evolved to a means of passing on a line without love, and now means commitment emotionally. And there are couples who marry who are to old to have children, and who choose not to have children--so should we have another form of union for them--like "domestic partnerships"? Gay marriage is about equality, and recognizing the equality and about civil rights. Fr. Rvier Sims

What’s in a word?

Marriage is sometimes defined in terms of civil rights. But prior to the civil right is the right I have by virtue as a human being to love and be loved.

I am no longer willing to allow any group of people to foist upon me and my partner their religious theories of marriage in our civil life.

Mr Betty is not fooling anyone with his empty talk and agonizing about Prop 8.

Prof. Betty writes: "Prop 8 upholds present state law, which limits marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman." This is a patently false statement. As Jim McCrea points out in the first comment, the current law in California is that marriage is not limited to a man and a woman; same-sex couples DO HAVE the right to marry. This is because of the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year. So Prop. 8 will overturn that, taking an existing right away. So please, Prof. Betty, you should "straighten" out your understanding of the law before you write op-ed pieces. :-)

Prof. Betty writes further; "But we are different in one important respect. When a man and a woman marry, they can have children in the way nature planned. And most do." Not all couples can or want to have children. In fact, I suspect that more and more are remaining childless by choice. But if this is the main criterion, then perhaps we should mandate fertility tests for all male-female couples before issuing them a marriage license. Should men and women past child-bearing age be prohibited from marrying one another? As far as I know, no state has done that, nor has any religion proposed it. Civil marriage should be about recognizing the special relationship that two people have chosen to share with each other. The state should support that by granting them a marriage license regardless of gender.

Finally, if you look at the history of marriage, you may find that in European (Christian) civilization, it was a civil contract first. Only later was it felt to be significant enough that the Church should give its blessing to it. Despite the story of the wedding feast at Cana, I don't think Jesus instituted it as a sacrament.

Prop. 8 in no way forces the Church to marry anyone or to even bless their union. It deals solely with civil rights. The Church should keep its nose out of the matter.

Debating marriage and Proposition 8

Prof. Betty,

The title of your article should have read “Debating marriage and Proposition 8.” With the California Supreme Court ruling in May 2008, and since June 15, 2008, California marriage does not distinguish between male-female or same-gender couples in civil marriage.

Your statement, “Prop 8 upholds present state law, which limits marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman,” is incorrect. California Family Law was modified to reflect marriage equality for all. Passage of Prop 8 would remove that equality and deny same-gender couples the right to marry. It is unclear what happens to the 11,000 same-gender couples married in California since June 15, 2008. Lawyers are not in agreement with respect to retroactivity.

If you look at the history of marriage, you will find that it has been a civil contract wherein the woman and children are property of the husband-father. Even today, the behavior and treatment towards many wives and children by many married men continues the notion of ownership and submission to the husband-father.

With marriage equality, children will understand marriage to be the love and commitment between the spouses with the same rights and obligations and a protective, loving environment where they can mature with caring respect.

If we consider the Kinsey report on human sexuality which describes the population on a scale of 10% heterosexual and 10% homosexual, that leaves 80% falling somewhere between. Empirical studies of the animal kingdom have found about 1,500 species exhibit homosexual behavior with 500 species predominantly homosexual. Therefore, bisexuality would fall within the boundaries, and traditional natural law theory is suspect since the animal kingdom falls within natural law.

Prof Betty,

There are two areas in your article I forgot to address: procreation and rights of couples.

The State of California, nor any other state in the United States to the best of my knowledge, requires procreation of children as a requirement or proof of civil marriage.

California registered domestic partnerships do not provide equality to marriage, for example, they do not receive any of the more than 1,100 rights and benefits married couples receive under federal law. Domestic partners also continue to have less security than married couples when they travel or move outside of California because their relationship is not recognized equally in other states. Nor do they have transportable rights in such matters as out-of-state employment, travel, relocation, emergency treatment and/or hospitalization and life-dependent decision-making by the espoused partner.

Michael Joseph,

You state that "Civil marriage should be about recognizing the special relationship that two people have chosen to share with each other." Why? Why should civil marriage not primarily be about knowing what responsibilities and rights people have when their intimacies unintentionally lead to procreation?

Betty said his friends include committed gay couples whom he loves and admires, “But we are different in one important respect. When a man and a woman marry, they can have children in the way nature planned. And most do. When gays or lesbians unite, they cannot. They can adopt, and lesbians can get pregnant with the help of a sperm bank. But most do not choose to bring up children. For these reasons I would say that a heterosexual union is one kind of thing, and a homosexual union is another. Therefore, I would prefer different names for them.”

This preference was one of the reasons Betty planned to vote for Proposition 8. One can quibble with his logic and his conclusion. For example, he could have called marriage any publicly committed relationship between two human beings, then noted various different kinds of marriage, such as childless heterosexual unions, childless homosexual unions, unions with children, etc.

But the fact remains that just over half of 10 million California voters found arguments like Betty's persuasive, as they have in most states. And they aren’t likely to be persuaded otherwise in the foreseeable future.

What should that tell us? It says that trying to get gay unions included in the legal definition of marriage is barking up the wrong tree. Even when the effort moves forward in a specific state, conservatives usually succeed in reversing it and in blocking any progress toward equal federal rights. Trying to make civil marriage the goal, as an expansion of civil-union rights, seems doomed to fail. But with a little imagination, the tables can be turned.

What would be wrong with pushing, instead, for civil unions with equal rights as THE LEGAL NORM for everyone? Marriage ceremonies performed by clergy could still be available for those who value them. But, for heterosexuals or homosexuals, the durable coupling registered with the state would be a civil union. Church weddings would be a religious add-on to civil unions, conferring whatever significance the church desires, but no superiority in the eyes of the law.

This reform would get the state out of the marriage business altogether. The state’s role would be to acknowledge publicly that a couple has agreed to live together, mingling their income, their assets, their liabilities and their lives. All couples so recognized would have identical rights under state and federal law. Whether a given civil union would also be regarded as matrimonial would be between the couple and their religious community of choice.

Historically, the church got into the civil marriage business to assist Constantine with the civil administration of his empire. The main service the church provided was record keeping. But eventually the churches got into the position of defining what marriage is from a legal standpoint. That may have had value in an age when most nations had an established religion. But once separation of church and state was formalized by the U.S. Constitution, it became impossible for any one religion’s understanding of marriage to remain the legal norm.

That, of course, has not stopped the religious right from trying. But the way to stop them from denying gay couples equal rights is not to fight for inclusion in religious conservatives' particular definition of legal marriage. Rather, it is time to challenge their right to define legal marriage at all.

The churches certainly have the right to decide what constitutes matrimony or religious marriage for their members. What they do not have the right to do is define legal marriage in a way that rewards some couples and punishes others.

Let’s work to make civil unions the form of domestic partnership which the state guarantees for all durable couples who seek public recognition. Let the churches fight within themselves and among themselves about God’s requirements for marriage. But let’s remind them that, under the First Amendment, they may not dictate such requirements to the nation or it states.

Well, this is all very disappointing.

My wife and I have been married 23 years. We only did it to spite the gay people we know. And now, they're trying to take that away from us...

Dear Betty--considering that there are in California, many thousand gay and lesbian couples who wont be able to marry, does that somehow make you feel better that the government that marries and divorces whoever comes in the door, is now suppose to put a little sign over those doors, "Heterosexuals Only".I remember walking with my parents and thousands of others to get rid of, forever we hoped, similar signs-"Whites Only."

Were you one of those kids that would race to "sit up front and then pout if someone beat you out? Of course with the marriage issue, during that brief period when gays and lesbians could marry, you still got to "sit up front." But for some kids, sitting up front isn't enough. For some, someone else has to be denied sitting up front for them to get the full savored enjoyment of it.
It is comforting to know--for you anyway-- that some of your best friends are gay. As to all those gays and lesbians who are not your "dear friends," they have been living together anyway. With difficulty and needless expense, some of them find ways to compensate for their "non-married" status. For all of those who will continue to live together and love each other I'm curious how that will make you feel better?
antonio