San Francisco is issuing marriage licenses to gay couples despite a California law that prohibits same-sex marriages.
It figures.
I should mention here that I not only grew up in San Francisco, but I lived just three blocks from Castro Street, the gayest street in the gayest city in the country, if not the world.
Walking home from grade school, I regularly saw men holding hands. Going to the grocery store, I passed men necking outside a bar. And when my mother was going to be late getting home, I often stayed with our downstairs neighbors, Allen and Jim — did I mention they had a fabulous apartment?
Despite the years of extensive exposure that I had to all that unnaturalness, here I am today — distressingly heterosexual and disgustingly normal.
Of course, I’m sure what saved me and my normalcy from all that exposure to alternative lifestyles was the absence of a state-sanctioned marriage license.
Right.
Conservative groups battling against the legalization of same-sex marriages pound on their pulpits as they declare that such marriages endanger The Family (insert appropriate trumpet sounds).
Huh?
I suppose if your notion of family means that you have exactly one mother (female), one father (male) and 2.4 kids (one boy, one girl, and four-tenths of your choice), then yes, same-sex marriages threaten The Family.
Of course, if you actually live on this planet, it might have come to your attention that many of us can’t define family in such a limited way.
We have single parents. We have step-mothers, step-fathers, and step-siblings. We have live-in boyfriends and live-in girlfriends. Grandparents raise their grandchildren while aunts and uncles raise nieces and nephews.
We also have same-sex parents.
Whether they are raising an adopted child, or the biological offspring of one partner, homosexual parents are a reality. Notables such as Rosie O’Donnell and Melissa Etheridge have helped put a face on the concept of gay parenting, but it was not so very long ago that the city of Springfield was removing “Heather Has Two Mommies” from its library shelves.
So, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that our concept of The Family is capable of evolving.
Doesn’t it follow, then, that our notion of marriage is also capable of evolution?
Left to my own devices, I’d define marriage as simply a loving committed relationship. I would leave the details to the individuals to determine for themselves. I do understand, however, that our laws require a bit more than that to go on when determining rights and legal protections.
And there are some serious rights at stake. Marriage can affect the taxes people pay, the health benefits they’re entitled to, and what rules of inheritance and survivorship apply.
There are some basic policy issues behind the government’s promotion of marriage. Among them:
(1) Marriage encourages reproduction — before concerns of overpopulation, this was considered a good thing.
(2) Marriage allows the state to hold the fathers responsible for the care of a child — before paternity testing, marriage was an acceptable way of defining fatherhood.
(3) Marriage encourages a fair allocation of assets — where one partner is the breadwinner and the other is a homemaker, marriage gives both an equal stake in the couple’s estate.
(4) Marriage encourages monogamy; in theory, this is supposed to discourage the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
Notice that there is nothing in these policies that must automatically exclude same-sex couples. In fact, expanding these policies to include same-sex couples would promote the welfare of those engaged in same-sex relationships.
And therein lies the rub.
Far too many people don’t want to promote the welfare of homosexuals. They view homosexuality as sinful, dirty, evil, pernicious or some other pejorative-of-your-choice. From that, they figure that any promotion of the welfare of a homosexual person is the same as promoting homosexuality itself. It doesn’t quite work that way.
Science is telling us more convincingly every day that homosexuality is not a choice but a biological imperative. No more than a person can control the melanin content of their skin can some people control their sexual identity.
From its inception, our country has dealt with bigotry in many shapes and sizes. It’s an ongoing battle, but we are making progress. The way I see it, if people of color no longer have to sit on the back of the bus, I see no reason why same-sex couples should have to go to San Francisco to get married.
Dire Straits (Part 2) by Peter Hockaday