John Corvino

Tag: Marriage

  • Not There Yet

    First published at Between the Lines News on December 4, 2008

    I have a confession to make. I’m getting ever so slightly tired of the reaction to Prop. 8.

    I know I shouldn’t. I know that the loss in California is terrible, and far-reaching, and deserving of attention. We had marriage, and voters took it away. A majority took away minority rights in a close election. That sucks.

    I also know that we should do everything possible to capitalize on the outrage gays and their supporters are feeling right now, organizing marches and coming out to their friends and family and whatnot. The last thing I’d want to do is curb their enthusiasm.

    And if I follow any of the above with a “but…,” it’s going to look like I don’t really mean it—even though I do. What happened in California really sucks.

    But…

    It’s important, as always, to maintain some perspective.

    Gay and lesbian Californians will go back to having virtually all the statewide legal incidents of marriage via domestic-partnership legislation. That’s not quite as good as marriage, but it’s better than what most of the rest of us have.

    Here in Michigan, not only do we lack domestic-partner legislation, our constitution bans it. And our attorney general interprets that ban as prohibiting public employers from offering health-insurance benefits to same-sex partners. We had them, and voters took them away.

    So while California may have been the first state to take marriage away from gays, it’s hardly the first to take rights away from gays—or the most significant in terms of tangible benefits.

    This past election day, Florida passed a ban similar to Michigan’s, and thus much worse than California’s Prop. 8. Not only did it pass, it passed with a whopping 62% of the vote. With all the fuss over California, you may not have heard about it.

    Arizona passed a ban that was limited to marriage, and thus less obnoxious than Florida’s and Michigan’s (and many others). But Arizona’s ban appeared on the ballot only because of a dishonest last-minute parliamentary maneuver—another story you should have heard about, but probably didn’t.

    And for what may be the worst bit of gay election-day news, consider Arkansas, which passed a ban on unmarried persons serving as adoptive or foster parents. That ban was specifically targeted to fight “the gay agenda,” but what it means is that thousands of children who could have stable loving homes will instead languish in state care.

    Of course, we could broaden our focus even further, and note that in some parts of the world, being gay is still grounds for arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. In that light, even Arkansas looks downright welcoming.

    None of this should make us any less outraged about what happened in California. I repeat: what happened in California sucks.

    But I hope the people getting outraged about California will take a moment to look around at the rest of the country—and the world—and get even more outraged. Because what happened in California is nothing new.

    For some years I’ve noticed a kind of myopia from some quarters of the GLBT community. They tell me: “We’ve won this war, John—gayness is a largely a non-issue. Sure, there are some stragglers in the South and the Midwest, but they’ll catch up soon enough. In the meantime, trying to engage them just dignifies their bigotry. It’s time for you to accept that we’re living in a post-gay society.”

    Prop. 8 stung so much, in part, because it proves that we are not there yet.

    This myopia is not limited to California, or even the coasts, though it does show up more there. It exists anywhere that liberals have the luxury of spending their time mostly around other liberals. (I write this as a liberal philosophy professor in an urban center, so I’m hardly immune to the phenomenon myself.)

    And so when Sally “Gays are a bigger threat than terrorists” Kern gets re-elected by a 16-point margin in Oklahoma, these liberals look on with a mix of perplexity, smugness, and pity. That is, if they look on at all. (In case you missed it, Kern’s comfortable re-election happened on November 4, too.)

    Of course, the other side has its own brand of myopia, as we all continue to become more polarized and isolated.

    What’s the solution? As I’ve said over and over again—in columns, in speeches, in any forum available—we need to keep talking to each other. We need to engage our opponents. We need to keep making the case.

    If there’s a silver lining to this Prop. 8 defeat, it’s the wake-up call that reminds us that we’re not there yet.

  • Happily Ever After, Delayed

    First published on November 06, 2008, in the Los Angeles Times

    On election night, I was less anxious about whether Barack Obama would become president than about whether a certain little girl could marry her princess.

    I’m talking about the girl in the “Yes on 8” commercial who came home from school after reading “King and King” and announced, “And I can marry a princess!”

    Not in California, she can’t — at least for the time being. Proposition 8 passed 52.5% to 47.5%, after a $74-million battle.

    I say “for the time being” because nobody expects this to be the end of the story. Already, gay-rights lawyers have filed a challenge in the state Supreme Court, saying the measure is an illegal constitutional revision. The cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles did the same, as did the first couple wed in Los Angeles. It remains to be sorted out whether gays and lesbians married since June 17 will have their marriages annulled, or converted to some other status, or what.

    Domestic partnerships will remain an option for same-sex couples in California. Other states, mainly along the coasts, will continue to recognize same-sex relationships: some with domestic partnerships, others with civil unions, and a few with outright marriage.

    Eventually, this hodgepodge will prove legally unwieldy, or socially inconvenient, or morally embarrassing — probably all of the above — and California will revisit the marriage question. If trends continue — gay-marriage opponents drew 61% of the vote in 2000 but only 52% on Tuesday — marriage equality will someday prevail.

    In the meantime, expect things to get messy. A same-sex couple married in Massachusetts (for example) will have absolutely no legal standing when traveling in California. A lesbian couple with a domestic partnership in Oregon may have to get married if they move to Connecticut. New Yorkers wed in California before the passage of Proposition 8 may have their marriage recognized by their home state but not by the state that married them. And so on.

    Both supporters and opponents will argue about whether the courts are the appropriate venue for resolving these issues. Traditionally, a key role for the courts has been to protect minority interests against the whims of the majority. One of the especially painful ironies of the Proposition 8 vote is the fact that historically oppressed minorities — including blacks, Mormons and Catholics — were among the measure’s strongest supporters.

    It’s worth remembering, however, that the courts follow social trends more often than they set them. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws against interracial marriage in Loving vs. Virginia, the majority of states had already repealed such laws. (Incidentally, California was the first.) As disappointing as the legal setbacks are, they pale in importance next to the cultural shift undeniably underway.

    One thing is clear: That shift is on the side of gay and lesbian equality. More and more gay and lesbian couples are openly committing to each other, having weddings, and even calling it marriage. The word is important. Princesses don’t dream about someday “domestically partnering with” the person they love. They dream about marrying him — or, in a minority of cases, her.

    To that minority, a bare majority of California voters sent a discriminatory message: You are not good enough for marriage. Your relationships — no matter how loving, how committed, how exemplary — are not “real” marriage.

    But “real” marriage transcends state recognition of it. And that’s another reason why this debate will continue. Because it’s not just about what California should or should not legally recognize. It’s also about what sort of relationships are morally valuable, and why. And that’s a debate that, slowly but surely, gay-rights advocates are winning.

    The path to inclusion is not always direct and the pace of change almost never steady. This setback is by no means a final verdict. In the coming years, gay and lesbian citizens will continue to tell our stories. We will demonstrate that, like everyone else, we are worthy of having someone to have and to hold, for better or for worse. More Americans will realize that such relationships are a good thing — not just for us but for the community at large.

    When the smoke from this battle clears, Americans will realize that gays are not interested in confusing children or in forcing princesses on little girls who don’t want them. But they also will realize that, when girls grow up to love princesses, they deserve to live happily ever after too.

  • Redefining Marriage? Or Expanding It?

    First published at 365gay.com on October 24, 2008

    I’ve been doing a lot of same-sex marriage debates lately, and thus interacting with opponents—not just my debate partner, but also audience members, some of whom will soon be voting on marriage amendments.

    Recently one of them asked, “Where does your standard of marriage come from?”

    From her tone, I could tell she meant it more as a challenge—a purely rhetorical question—than as a genuine query. Still, I wanted to give her a good answer.

    But what is the answer? My own “standard” of marriage, if you can call it that, comes from my parents and grandparents, whose loving, lifelong commitments I strive to emulate. That doesn’t mean mine would resemble theirs in every detail—certainly not the male/female part—but I can’t help but learn from their example.

    That wasn’t the answer she was looking for, so she asked again. This time I tried challenging the question: talking about “THE” standard of marriage suggests that marriage is a static entity, rather than an institution that has evolved over time. Historically, marriage has been more commonly polygamous than monogamous; more commonly hierarchical than egalitarian. It changes.

    I pointed these facts out, adding that our standard for marriage—or any other social institution—ought to be human well-being. Since same-sex marriage promotes security for gay and lesbian persons and, consequently, social stability, it meets that standard.

    She wasn’t satisfied. “But if we don’t have a single fixed standard,” she continued, “then anything goes.”

    There’s something rhetorically satisfying when an opponent’s fallacies can be identified with neat names: in this case, “false dilemma.” Either marriage remains solely heterosexual, she was saying, or else society embraces a sexual free-for-all—as former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum put it, “man on man, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”

    No, no, no. The fact that boundaries change and evolve does not entail that we should have no boundaries at all, or that where they’re drawn is entirely arbitrary. Again, the standard is societal well-being, and everyone agrees that “man on dog” marriage fails to meet that standard. Let’s not change the subject.

    Her challenge reminded me of those who cite the dictionary and then object that same-sex marriage is “impossible by definition,” since marriage by definition requires a husband and wife. Dictionaries reflect usage, and as usage evolves, so do dictionaries. (Ever try to read Beowulf in the original Old English?)

    More important, the dictionary objection founders on the simple fact that if something were truly “impossible by definition,” there would be no reason to worry about it, since it can’t ever happen. No one bothers amending constitutions to prohibit square circles or married bachelors.

    But my rhetorical satisfaction in explaining “false dilemma” and the evolution of language was tempered by the reality I was confronting. My questioner wasn’t simply grandstanding. She was expressing a genuine—and widely shared—fear: if we embrace same-sex marriage, than life as we know it will change dramatically for the worse. Standards will deteriorate. Our children will inherit a confused and morally impoverished world.

    Such fear is what’s driving many of the voters who support amendments in California, Florida, and Arizona to prohibit same-sex marriage, and we ignore or belittle it at our peril.

    And so I explained again—gently but firmly—how same-sex marriage is good for gay people and good for society. When there’s someone whose job it is to take care of you a vice-versa, everyone benefits—not just you, but those around you as well. That’s true whether you’re gay or straight.

    I also explained how giving marriage to gay people doesn’t mean taking it away from straight people, any more than giving the vote to women meant taking it away from men. No one is suggesting that we make same-sex marriage mandatory. Our opponents’ talk of “redefining” marriage—rather than, say, “expanding” it—tends to obscure this fact.

    Not all fears bend to rational persuasion, but some do. In any case, I don’t generally answer questions in these forums for the sole benefit of the questioner. Typically, I answer them for benefit of everyone in the room, including the genuine fence-sitters who are unsure about what position to take on marriage equality for gays and lesbians.

    To them, we need to make the case that same-sex marriage won’t cause the sky to fall.

  • Un-Scaring California

    First published at 365gay.com on October 17, 2008

    If the election were held tomorrow, it’s quite likely that gays would lose marriage in California.

    That’s California, our most populous state, home of San Francisco and Nancy Pelosi and the liberal Hollywood elite. What progressive California giveth, progressive California may taketh away.

    It surprises (and frankly, depresses) me how few gay people know or care what’s happening. Here’s the quick version: in May, the California Supreme Court declared the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Prior to the decision, California had domestic partnership legislation granting nearly all of the statewide legal incidents of marriage. But the Court held that denying marriage to gay and lesbian couples deprived them of a fundamental right and constituted wrongful discrimination.

    Gays began legally marrying in June, making California the second state (after Massachusetts) to support marriage equality.

    Meanwhile, opponents collected enough signatures for a November ballot initiative to amend the constitution so that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” (The amendment would leave domestic partnerships intact, but it would make it impossible for California to recognize same-sex marriages from Massachusetts or elsewhere.)

    For several months we seemed poised to win. That changed in the last few weeks, with recent polls showing us losing 47-42%.

    Why the shift? One reason is that we’re being out-fundraised and outspent, and the opposition’s advertising is effective. Recent figures posted by the Los Angeles Times show our opponents raising $26.1 million to our $21.8. A substantial chunk of the opposition’s money has come from out of state, 40% of it from Mormons.

    You read that last line correctly: 40% of the financial support for one-man-one-woman marriage in California is coming from members of a church that little over a century ago was pro-polygamy (and still has many polygamist offshoots). 40% of the support is coming from a religious denomination that makes up less than 2% of the U.S. population.

    What’s even more shocking are some of the individual reports about donors. The Sacramento Bee tells the story of Pam and Rick Patterson, who live with their five children in a modest three-bedroom home in Folsom. They withdrew $50,000 from their savings and donated it to Yes on 8. Pam says that it wasn’t an easy decision, “But it was a clear decision, one that had so much potential to benefit our children and their children.”

    Or consider David Nielson, a retired insurance executive from Auburn. He and his wife Susan donated $35,000. They plan to forgo vacations for the next several years and make other sacrifices to cover their donation, “because some causes are worth fighting for.”

    If I didn’t know better, I would think that California had just made same-sex marriage mandatory.

    And this is what’s both baffling and frustrating. We gays have a direct and palpable stake in the outcome of this referendum. Yet few of us (myself included) are willing to make the kinds of sacrifices made by the Nielsons and the Pattersons—people whose marriage was, is, and will remain heterosexual regardless of what happens. They are free to choose so-called “traditional marriage” if it suits them. So what are they so afraid of?

    I think the gay-rights movement’s failure to grapple with this question is another important reason why we may lose. We frame our arguments in terms of rights and liberty, forgetting that some people want the liberty to live without exposure to certain ways of life. They want a world where no one sees marriage for gays as an option—not their government, not their neighbors, and definitely not their children.

    They want that world badly, badly enough to sacrifice for it.

    In a democratic society, they are free to want that simpler world, and to spend money to get it, and to vote in favor of it. We are free to fight back. But that fight must include thoughtful responses to their concerns. It is not enough to assert our rights, especially when the documents embodying those rights can be amended by popular vote.

    We need to make a positive moral case to our opponents. We need to show them that our lives are good, that our relationships are healthy, that our happiness is compatible with theirs. We need to show them that marriage is good for gays, and that what’s good for gays is good for society.

    We need to tell them the story of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the first same-sex couple to marry in California, a couple who were together for 56 years until Del Martin’s death in August at the age of 87. We need to tell them: these are the kind of people you are trying to take marriage away from.

    I wouldn’t put my money on winning over the Pattersons and the Nielsons. But there are undecided voters who share their concerns—concerns about the world their children will inherit. We need to make the case to them. We need to raise money to communicate that case. And we need to do it fast.

  • ‘Saturday Night’ Gets it Right

    First published at 365gay.com on October 10, 2008

    In the last few weeks I’ve become seriously convinced that Saturday Night Live could help sway this presidential election. For one thing, it has crystallized Sarah Palin’s foreign-policy experience in a simple phrase:

    “I can see Russia from my house.”

    She didn’t quite say that, of course, but it’s close enough—not to mention funny, and memorable.

    Thus I was counting on SNL to neatly sum up the vice-presidential debate between Palin and Joe Biden. They didn’t disappoint.

    Sure, there were the expected shots at Palin: her non-answers, her lack of experience, her winks. But SNL is an equal-opportunity parodist, and one of my favorite moments poked fun at Biden.

    Queen Latifah/ Ifill: “Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?”

    Sudeikis/Biden: “I do. In an Obama-Biden administration same-sex couples would be guaranteed the same property rights, rights to insurance, and rights of ownership as heterosexual couples. There will be no distinction. I repeat: NO DISTINCTION.”

    Latifah/Ifill: “So to clarify, do you support gay marriage, Senator Biden?”

    Sudeikis/Biden: (deadpan) “Absolutely not.”

    Then, in case anyone missed the contrast, he follows up:

    Sudeikis/Biden: “But I do think they should be allowed to visit one another in the hospital and in a lot of ways, that’s just as good, if not better.”

    Again, this is not quite what the actual Biden said—but it’s close enough, not to mention funny, and memorable.

    We’ve seen this before in the Democrats: on the one hand, trying to support full legal equality for same-sex couples, and other the other hand, trying to avoid the m-word at all costs. The result is an incoherent mess—one that gets messier when they try to explain the incoherence.

    Consider, for instance, the actual Biden’s explanation of his and Obama’s opposition to full marriage equality. They don’t support same-sex marriage, Biden said, because that’s a decision “to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths [to determine] what you call it.”

    No, it isn’t. Because the question was not about religious marriage, it was about civil marriage—which in a free society is a matter for government, not religion.

    I don’t mean to pick on the Democrats here. The only reason that the Republicans avoid getting into the same logical pretzel is that they don’t even try to make the argument for full equality under the law.

    And while it’s true that both Obama and McCain oppose same-sex marriage at the federal level, Obama remains far ahead on gay issues: in supporting federal civil unions, in opposing “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell,” in opposing key portions of the “Defense of Marriage Act,” and in the kinds of federal judges and Supreme Court justices he is likely to appoint. Obama also opposes anti-gay state marriage amendments that McCain supports.

    The question is how long we can politely pretend that his stance of “full legal equality but not marriage” makes sense, because it doesn’t. It didn’t when John Kerry used it in the last election, it didn’t when Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson used it during the primaries, and it doesn’t now.

    It doesn’t make logical sense, although I can see why some think it makes political sense.

    Personally, I’m a political incrementalist. I believe in fighting for a half a loaf today and then regrouping to fight for the rest tomorrow, if the full loaf is genuinely not yet possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t find legal inequality demeaning: it just means that securing certain rights is more important to me than being an “all or nothing” purist.

    So I’m willing to support the “half a loaf” politicians. I’m just not willing to pretend that they’re offering the full loaf, or to rest content when I get it. I’m not willing to settle for “separate but equal”—another oxymoron in this debate.

    History teaches us what “separate but equal” does. It demeans one group by suggesting that they must be kept apart from others. But it also embodies a bigger problem: “separate but equal” never turns out really to be “equal.”

    That was true during segregation, and it’s true now for civil unions—a newfangled status that, in practice, simply doesn’t grant full legal equality. We’ve learned this in case after case, as civil-union couples face legal issues with entities that don’t even understand their legal status, much less recognize it.

    That’s why we need to keep fighting for full equality. Because in the end, there’s nothing funny about unequal treatment under the law.

  • At Wedding, Gay PDA Not OK

    First published at Between the Lines News on September 25, 2008

    Like many gay people, I have a love-hate relationship with weddings. On the one hand, I enjoy any excuse for a party, and what’s not to like about celebrating love and commitment with family and friends? On the other hand…

    Well, where do I start?

    Let’s face it: weddings can be tense affairs. The gaudy pageantry, the forced smiles, the nosy relatives…there is, in fact, a lot not to like.

    This is especially true given the tendency of some marrying couples to want to outdo everyone else by being “creative.” I remember one wedding—a gay wedding, as it happens—where, after the vows, the grooms hopped into a vintage convertible and drove off…

    …for about 150 feet, at which point they abruptly reached the end of the property, got out, and walked back. (Not surprisingly, that marriage lasted about two months, so perhaps the short ride was an apt metaphor.)

    I find straight weddings especially tense, given the contrast between “Isn’t it wonderful that these two have found each other and let’s all be incredibly happy for them” and “Not everyone knows that you’re gay so please don’t spoil this special day by bringing it up, okay?”

    Never mind that you and your partner may have been together for years, and have plenty to teach the new couple. Never mind that love and commitment are supposed to be what we’re celebrating. We just don’t want you “making a scene.” So when the slow song plays, you’d better just dance with Grandma.

    And that’s typically what I do. Not that I hide my gayness: I introduce Mark as “my partner” and when asked “What do you do?” I talk freely about my work as a gay-rights speaker and columnist. But there are limits, and slow dancing is generally one of them.

    Last weekend I discovered another. Mark and I attended the wedding of a straight couple we have known for many years. Wanting to be “creative,” the couple added a new twist to the tradition of kissing whenever guests clinked their spoons against their glasses. They gave the emcee a list of select couples in the room, and for each round of clinking he chose one to show everyone “how it’s done” before the newlyweds followed suit. These demonstrations provided yet another opportunity for one-upmanship, as quick smooches made way for dramatic dips, lip locks, and even face licking.

    In case you were wondering, Mark and I weren’t on the list.

    At first I was frankly relieved by this, then irritated, then sad. The newlyweds are staunch liberals, highly educated, and committed to gay rights. They themselves would have no problem seeing us kiss—indeed, they attended our own wedding several years back. And I can’t say I blame them for not including us among the “example” couples. Supporting gay rights is one thing; giving Grandma a heart attack is another.

    What saddened me was the stark reminder that gay public displays of affection still have the power to shock and disgust.

    It wasn’t unreasonable for my hosts to be sensitive to that fact. I only wish they had been more sensitive to the fact that excluding Mark and me from their kissing game underscored the disparity. And it didn’t help that their wedding fell on our anniversary, which (absent other considerations) would have made our participation even more fitting.

    Why get worked up over not being invited to participate in a game I found cheesy anyway? Maybe it’s because I’m a huge proponent of kissing. While I’m hardly what you’d call gushy, I don’t shy away from public displays of affection. I grew up in an Italian family where everyone—men included—kissed. Doing otherwise would be an insult.

    I’m also a big believer in PDA parity. If the first person to leave a party at my house gives me a hug, I make sure everyone else gets one too—male or female, straight or gay. (I keep a mental list of obstinate “non-huggers,” and to them I extend a handshake: my goal is to make people feel affirmed, not uncomfortable.)

    Mainly, though, I got worked up because I believe that our affection is valuable. It matters. Not just because it “feels good,” but because romantic joy is an ingredient in a life well-lived.

    That’s something we celebrate at weddings. It’s something that, however awkwardly, our friends’ kissing game celebrated.

    It’s something that we gays should celebrate too.

  • Palin, Pregnancy, and Principles

    First published at 365gay.com on September 5, 2008

    I admit it: I was fascinated by the announcement that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

    It’s no surprise that teenagers have sex—even evangelical Christian teenagers, and especially very good looking ones, in Alaska, where there’s not much to do but hunting and fishing and…well, you know.

    And it’s certainly no surprise that sex makes babies.

    But when a conservative politician who advocates abstinence education has a very public failure of abstinence in her own family, revealed just a few days after she’s announced as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, it’s bound to get people talking.

    If nothing else, the social and political contours are interesting. Right-wingers admire Palin’s principles, but some wish she would put aside her political ambitions to tend to her family. Left-wingers reject this idea as anti-feminist, but they also reject Palin’s politics.

    Let me make two things very clear.

    First, Bristol Palin is not running for office; Sarah Palin is. Bristol Palin, like all expectant mothers, should be wished well—especially since she finds herself pregnant during the frenzy and scrutiny of her mother’s vice-presidential campaign. She deserves our compassion, as does her new fiancé.

    Second, Sarah Palin is no hypocrite—as some uncharitable commentators have suggested—for embracing her yet-unwed pregnant daughter.

    There’s no inconsistency in believing both that we should teach abstinence until marriage and that we should support those children who become pregnant anyway. There’s no hypocrisy in striving for an ideal that you and your loved ones occasionally fall short of. You don’t stop endorsing speed limits just because you (or your kids) sometimes lose track of the speedometer.

    The fact is, Sarah Palin’s rejection of comprehensive sex education deserves criticism on its own merits. Her family’s behavior has nothing to do with it, aside from adding anecdotes to the statistics suggesting that “abstinence only” doesn’t achieve what its proponents hope and claim.

    For example, abstinence advocates are fond of citing studies by Yale’s Hannah Brückner and Columbia’s Peter Bearman, who show that adolescents who take abstinence pledges generally delay sex about eighteen months longer than those who don’t. What the advocates don’t mention is the researchers’ finding that only 12% of these adolescents keep their pledges, and that when they do have sex, they are far less likely to use protection.

    In other words, the failure rate of condoms pales by comparison to the failure rate of abstinence pledges—88%, if you believe Brückner and Bearman.

    But it’s not Sarah Palin’s rejection of comprehensive sex education that’s bugging me here. What’s bugging me is the right-wing reaction, which for the most part boils down to “Nobody’s perfect, life happens, but you love and support your children and grandchildren.”

    That, of course, is the proper reaction.

    But it stands in sharp contrast to their usual reaction to gay kids, their rhetoric about “Love in Action” and “Love Win[ning] Out” notwithstanding.

    For example, contrast the right-wing reaction to Palin’s grandchild with their reaction to Dick Cheney’s grandchild Samuel—son of his lesbian daughter Mary. At the time, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America announced that Mary’s pregnancy “repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation.” She was hardly alone in such denunciations.

    Now here’s the same Crouse on Palin: “We are confident that she and her family will handle this unexpected situation with grace and love. We appreciate the fact that the Palins…are providing loving support to the teenager and her boyfriend.”

    There are differences in the two cases to be sure. Bristol plans to marry the father, and thus will provide the baby with a “traditional” family (in one sense); Mary won’t. Bristol’s pregnancy was probably accidental, whereas Mary’s was certainly deliberate.

    On the other hand, Mary’s child arrives in the home of a mature and stable couple; Bristol’s in the home of a young and hastily formed one.

    But the sharpest difference in the cases is the contrast in right-wingers’ compassion. It’s the difference in empathy, a trait that’s at the core of the Golden Rule.

    They tell heterosexuals: abstinence until marriage—and if you fail, we forgive you. For gays, it’s abstinence forever—and if you fail, we denounce you.

    For heterosexuals, “Nobody’s perfect, life happens, but you love and support your children and grandchildren.”

    For gays, not so much.

  • When Tolerance Isn’t Enough

    First published at 365gay.com on August 15, 2008

    “Why do you need other people’s approval?”

    The question came from an old (straight but gay-supportive) friend, as we sat over breakfast discussing progress in the gay-rights movement. He meant it sincerely.

    “After all,” he continued, “if you like rap music, and I hate rap music, you don’t need my approval to pursue your tastes. Indeed, even if I think listening to rap music is a mind-numbing waste of time, so what? Live and let live.”

    That’s true. But when it comes to gay rights, “live and let live” may no longer be enough.

    The difference between what he describes and what I seek is sometimes described as that between tolerance and acceptance. Roughly, “tolerance” involves leaving people alone to live as they choose, even when you don’t approve, whereas acceptance involves somehow affirming their choices.

    But even “acceptance” seems too weak here. Acceptance sounds close to acquiescence, which is scarcely distinguishable from tolerance. Gay people don’t want merely to be tolerated or accepted, we want to be embraced and encouraged—like everyone else in society.

    The shift from tolerance to acceptance is apparent in the movement’s goals. When I came out in the late 1980’s, we were still fighting to make gay sex legal. As late as 2003, homosexual sodomy was criminal in over a dozen states. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court finally declared sodomy laws unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas, overturning Bowers v. Hardwick. Suddenly, tolerance was legally mandated.

    Then things changed—rapidly. Just a few months later, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts declared the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Gays and lesbian Americans began legally marrying the following year, and marriage became the predominant gay-rights issue in this country. Now California’s doing it (despite the threat of an amendment overturning that decision), and a handful of other states have civil unions or domestic partnerships.

    Legally speaking, when it comes to marriage, “tolerance” may be enough. A marriage is legal whether people approve of it or not. Socially speaking, however, marriage requires more.

    That’s because marriage is more than just a relationship between two individuals, recognized by the state. It’s also a relationship between those individuals and a larger community. We symbolize this fact by the witnesses at the wedding, who literally and figuratively stand behind the marrying couple. Marriage thrives when there’s a network of support in place to reinforce it.

    Beyond that, marriage is a life-defining relationship that changes those within it. This is why the claim “I accept you but I don’t accept your homosexuality” rings so hollow. When my relationship is life-defining, rejecting it means rejecting me. “Tolerating” it is better, but not by much: nobody wants their life-defining relationship to be treated as one would treat a nuisance, much less “a mind-numbing waste of time.”

    And so the rap-music analogy falters in at least two ways. First, listening to music doesn’t require the participation of others (beyond those who produced it), but marriage does. At least, it does in order to work best. Marriage is challenging, and it needs community support. Second, no one wants their life-defining relationships to be merely “tolerated.” Ideally, they should be celebrated and encouraged.

    Obviously, not everyone will approve of everyone else’s marriage. You politely applaud at a wedding even if you think the groom is a jerk. But the ideal is still one where others’ participation is crucial. I’ve even been to wedding ceremonies—straight and gay—where the minister turns during the vows and asks, “Do you pledge to support Whosie and Whatsit in their marriage?” and the audience responds “We do!”

    That’s one reason why same-sex marriage is so contentious. We are not simply asking people to “tolerate” something we do “in the privacy of our bedrooms.” We are asking them to support and encourage something we do publicly. We are asking them, in effect, to participate.

    We should not be ashamed of asking for that. We’re social creatures, and it’s natural for us to seek others’ support. It’s especially natural for us to seek it from our friends and family. But insofar as we desire such support from people not ready to provide it, we need to make the case for it.

  • Obama’s California Contortion

    First published at 365gay.com on July 7, 2008

    Barack Obama believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Yet he opposes the California ballot initiative that would write that view into the state constitution, calling it “divisive and discriminatory.” What gives?

    Obama’s not alone in this apparent contradiction: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s Republican governor, holds a similar juxtaposition of beliefs: that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and that the state’s supreme court did the right thing by declaring California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. (Thanks to the court’s decision, California began marrying same-sex couples on June 16—an activity the ballot initiative aims to stop.)

    Meanwhile, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain disapproves of the court’s decision and supports the initiative to overturn it. Yet McCain, Schwarzenegger and Obama all agree that decisions about marriage should be left to the states.

    Confused yet?

    For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on Obama, and let’s start with the last issue first: marriage should be left to the states. There’s no contradiction in holding that states (as opposed to the federal government) should set marriage policy, while also holding an opinion about which policy they ought to favor.

    But that still leaves the question: according to Obama, which policy should they favor? Heterosexual-only marriage, or marriage equality?

    The answer depends upon what Obama means by “I personally believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.” Does he mean it as a matter of personal preference, as when I say, “I personally believe that martinis should be made with gin (but by all means, have a vodka martini if you want one)”? Or does he mean it as a matter of public policy?

    At first glance, Obama seems to be skating the line between the two. His endorsement of robust federal civil unions—but not marriage—for same-sex couples suggests a public-policy stance against full marriage equality. (By “full marriage equality,” I mean extending marriage to gays, not creating a “separate but equal” institution under a different name.) By contrast, his remarks on California suggest a mere personal preference that he doesn’t feel compelled to write into law.

    There’s a third option as well. Perhaps Obama’s belief that “marriage is between a man and a woman” is stronger than personal preference (as in my gin martini example) but still not something he wants to codify legally. Perhaps he holds a religious or moral objection to same-sex marriage—not merely in the sense of “I don’t want this for myself” but in the sense of “No one ought morally to choose this.” Would he then be inconsistent for supporting the California decision?

    Not necessarily. In a pluralistic free society, not every moral conviction can be—or should be—enshrined in law.

    That’s not just because doing so would be unwieldy and impractical. And it’s not just because some laws have unintended and undesirable consequences. As important as those reasons are, they miss the key point.

    That point is that securing our freedom sometimes requires giving others the freedom to behave in ways of which we disapprove. As former New York Governor Mario Cuomo once put it, discussing the relationship between his Catholic faith and his policy positions:

    “The Catholic public official lives the political truth … that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful…. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.”

    I’m not suggesting that Obama thinks same-sex marriage is sinful—I frankly doubt that he does. I am suggesting that there’s a way to believe, consistently, that marriage should be heterosexual and that it would be a mistake to stand in the way of those who hold otherwise.

    Obama might also—quite reasonably—worry that the amendment would do more than stop same-sex marriage. It could also strip away domestic partnership benefits, including health care, as amendments in other states have done. That might help explain his “divisive and discriminatory” charge.

    Of course, to say that these reasons would render Obama’s positions consistent is not to say that they’re motivating him. More likely, his positions are motivated by political reality. He can’t afford to alienate gay-supportive Democrats by opposing same-sex marriage, and he can’t afford to alienate mainstream voters by endorsing it. So he does both, and neither.

    Obama isn’t unique in trying to have it both ways. It’s not about logic—it’s about politics.

  • The Phelpses’ Logic (and Ours)

    First published at 365gay.com on February 4, 2008

    No one was surprised when the Phelpses announced plans to protest Heath Ledger’s memorial services. Known for their “God Hates Fags” message and their obnoxious funeral pickets—they now demonstrate against fallen American soldiers for defending our “doomed, fag-loving nation”—the Phelpses are nothing if not attention whores. What’s surprising is how much the Phelpses can tell us about ourselves.

    Let’s admit it: deranged people, like car wrecks, are fascinating to watch. While everyone would be better off ignoring the Phelpses, doing so is hard sometimes. (I feel the same way about Britney, Paris, and Lindsay—my willpower against media “junk food” is only so strong.) So it was that I recently found myself listening to Shirley Phelps-Roper—daughter of Fred, who founded the infamous Westboro Baptist Church—when she appeared on a Washington D.C. radio station.

    Phelps-Roper condemned Ledger for Brokeback Mountain, in which he plays a cowboy who falls in love with another man. Ledger is in hell because he mocked God’s law, she claimed, and “if you follow his example, you will go to hell with him.”

    Predictably, the show’s callers attacked Phelps-Roper; sadly, they often made little sense. One insisted that, according to the bible, God doesn’t judge anyone. Say what? Phelps-Roper’s reading of the bible may be selective, but apparently, so is everyone else’s: it doesn’t take much searching to find a judgmental, even wrathful God in the bible.

    The show’s host then attacked Phelps-Roper for her picket signs, which often thank God for disasters: “Thank God for 9/11.” “Thank God for maimed soldiers.” “Thank God for Hurricane Katrina.” and so on. Phelps-Roper had a ready comeback:

    “Exactly. You better thank him for all of his judgments because the scripture says that God is known by the judgment that he executes in this Earth, so you thank him for everything.”

    This answer is interesting, and not as bizarre as it might first appear. Theologians have long pondered the problem of evil—if God is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful, why does he allow evil in the world?—and some quite respectable ones have concluded that evil doesn’t really exist. From our limited human perspective, things may look bad, but that’s just because our minds are too feeble to comprehend God’s design: ultimately, everything is just as God planned it.

    The problem is that, pushed to its limits, this position quickly yields practical contradictions. By this logic, we ought to thank God for Heath Ledger’s death; but by the same logic, we ought to thank God for Brokeback Mountain’s box-office success. We ought to thank God for Hurricane Katrina; yet we ought also to thank him for sparing the (delightfully debaucherous) French Quarter. We ought to thank God for AIDS, yet also for protease inhibitors. If God should be thanked for everything, then God should be thanked for EVERYTHING.

    Yet somehow I don’t expect to see the Phelpses with signs thanking God for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, or the passage of ENDA, or the increasing acceptance of GLBT people. If I were on a radio program with Shirley Phelps-Roper, I’d want to ask her “Why not?” If all of God’s judgments are “perfect,” why not these?

    My guess is that she’d answer that these events result from human free will rather than divine will. But then how do we distinguish them from 9/11? Was it God’s will for Islamic extremists to fly planes into buildings? If so, do they escape hell, since they were only doing God’s will? If not, then why are we thanking God, rather than blaming the extremists?

    I wouldn’t expect a satisfying answer to these questions, but that’s not because Phelps-Roper is deranged (which she is) or stupid (which she isn’t, as far as I can tell). It’s because centuries of philosophical theology have failed to produce satisfying answers to the problem of evil. Instead, we pick and choose: even though God is supposed to be responsible for everything, we thank him for the things we like and call the rest a mystery. In this respect Phelps-Roper resembles most biblical believers: she just happens to “like” rather different things than sane folks do.

    A talented and likable actor dies in his prime. The Phelpses thank God, while mainstream believers declare God’s will a mystery. Had the paramedics saved him, mainstream believers would thank God while the Phelpses declared God’s will a mystery. In either case, divine providence remains unquestioned. Heads, God wins. Tails, God wins.

    If there’s a mystery here, it’s why believers seem to have lower expectations of God than they do of local weather forecasters. That, and why a loving God lets the Phelpses continue to spew hate in his name.