Subscribe to Breaking NewsRuby-Sachs: A Pragmatic Argument for Approaching Gay Marriage
There is a lot of time and money spent on defining the word marriage. Does it mean family? Procreation? Stability? Commitment? But in a legal sense, marriage is a basket of rights. Some of these rights are pretty mundane (like once you’re married you have the right to require your spouse to refrain from marrying anyone else without first getting a divorce), but others are significant (benefits, tax deductions, property rights etc.).
In the debate about gay marriage, a lot of attention is paid to civil unions vs. marriage and, while I agree with Jenna that creating inequalities in law – even if the two terms fundamentally stand for the same thing – creates untenable violations of the rights of LGBT people, I am a pragmatist at heart.
In Canada, the fight for same-sex marriage was not won with a grand challenge and call for equality (although that was going on in the background with much help from civil society organizations). The first big gay marriage win was a case about a woman whose partner, after years of living together, kicked her out of the matrimonial home, changed the locks and unilaterally took her name off their joint business. She went to the courts for the same divorce rights as her straight friends.
And won.
In that decision, no one mentioned “gay marriage.”
Meanwhile, groups around the country, especially unions like the Canadian Auto Workers, were fighting for same-sex benefits at private employers. Soon, the courts were forced to determine that under the equality provisions, the word spouse (both common law and married) had to include same-sex couples.
That led to a debate about civil unions and, only after the government had supported a separate but equal regime, was there a decision requiring the same legal term for both straight and same-sex relationships.
What this history tells us is that these little battles that have been playing out in states across the country are important. And the battles we fight everyday to have employers recognize our relationships without a government mandate are also essential.
But no government, not even Obama, will leap into equality without being forced to do so. And while I believe in activism by the courts, maybe we all have to settle for a piecemeal struggle for the rights in the marriage basket. That is what the new DOMA challenge is about.
I am infuriated by calls for separate but equal and am frustrated by the inaction of the current administration. But that part of me that understands politics and history recognizes that rights may have to be won one by one before real equality can be achieved.
This reminds me of segretationists’ arguments in the 1950s that those riding in the front of the bus and those confined to the back got to their stops at the same time.
That is all so right. Now, tell everyone who opposes gay marriage that.
http://stuffqueerpeopleneedtoknow.wordpress.com/
What about this article reminds you of that argument. This is a history lesson about the path Canada took to get to full rights, in order to make the point we might have to follow a similar path. There is no argument anywhere in this article about why separation is appropriate or inappropriate.
I agree. We are unlikely to get one big court judgement or one big piece of sweeping legislation. In politics and in society, progress will be made by a long series of incremental steps and compromises.
It’s maddenly slow and frustrating, but it’s the way it works.
Remember, though, that in California marriage was already a right. The courts had quietly and without fuss decided that same-sex couples had the same right to marriage as heterosexual couples. It was the anti-gay marriage people who made the loud demand and forced their legislation into the books. By playing it quiet and not standing up to make our voices heard, we capitulated on a right that was already ours.
I agree with this article. If you’re moving, for example, you don’t wake your kid up one morning, pack them in the car, and head of to Oregon or Ohio or wherever. You tell them ahead of time, show them pictures of the house, etc. I think that a lot of the opposition to this is from people going, “new!” and freaking out. You’ve got to give them time to get used to the idea.
We’re going to get it. But doing it gradually makes it easier in the long run. For example, if everybody had gone for ‘civil unions’ first, then there wouldn’t be all these states with marriage bans. That would make the path to marriage shorter in the long run.
As for segregation, people don’t realize that the civil rights movement started as soon as slavery ended. Struggles for equality take a long time. We’ve already come a long way, and it doens’t make sense now to demand everything all at once. That’s just shooting ourselves in the foot.
The rights recognized in 1999 were for what most people called “common law marriages” or “informal marriages” not “civil unions”. To my knowledge, civil unions do not exist in Canada outside Quebec, and only since 2002.
Also, when Canada began recognizing formal same-sex marriages in 2004, it didn’t have the benefit of a large similar neighbor who had already done it. The US has that benefit. There should be no appeasement of those who hate us.
Canadian married to an Ameican here.
It wasn’t easy, but we got it right. Based upon our experience, here’s my advice (for what it is worth):
-Write intelligent, persuasive letters to the editor. Repeatedly.
-Challenge the taxation staus of religious organizations that are politically involved.
For the moment, focus on repeal of DADT-the conservative right want to desparately hang on to that trophy. Take it. It is within your grasp,and has more value in the marriage fight than you seem to realize. Listen: “I’m good enough to die for my country, but not good enough to be allowed marriage?” Come on.
“For example, if everybody had gone for ‘civil unions’ first, then there wouldn’t be all these states with marriage bans.”
That’s not true. In many cases such states also sought banning civil unions.
In California even they were trying to push to get rid of domestic partnerships along side with Prop. 8 but it didn’t get enough support – point being it was there.
We are NEVER going to have full equality fighting for anything less than full equality. Can you think of any major civil rights movement that changed America where it was the majority that welcomes it and not the minority fighting for it the whole way through?
Take interracial marriages for example. Despite everything that changed for blacks/whites, what did it take to change it? An interracial couple fighting it to the courts..
Rosa Parks had to make a stand.
ETC.
Pragmatism only goes so far.
It’s a matter of principal to fight for nothing less than true equality until it happens and not to concede to the majority that would deny such equality.
I know people think that part-way equals something, but in California for example the latest gay marriage case in Supreme Court the judges implied that no rights were being taken from gay marriages in light of domestic partnerships existing for gays similar to marriage.
ROADBLOCK!
See what happened?
None of us should be fooled into thinking that those who might afford us civil unions and not gay marriages might in time favor gay marriages.
NONE of the arguments against gay marriage are even valid. We give them credibility by accepting less..
If the comparison to Black civil Rights has to be made…
Slavery “ended” in 1865
Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964
Nearly 100 years and it didn’t end there. Add that to the time it took to get any semblence of REAL equality for Black folks in the U.S. Signing a piece of paper did nothing to change minds or behavior.
Look at two of the most well know figures from the Black Civil Rights struggle. Dr. King and Malcom X..
Different tactics. Same goal. Both necessary in my opinion.
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Stonewall, which is beleived by many to be a watershed moment in the fight for Gay Civil Rights in this country, was 1969. So we’re about 40 years in.
I don’t believe it’ll take 100 years and it won’t be fast enough for any of us but we’ll get there.
Fact is every approach to the end goal has its place.
Jonathan,
That’s partly my point, and it didn’t get better for black people by just fighting for something less.
I don’t agree about Stonewall though. The gay movement started a lot farther back than then. Ever hear of The Society for Human Rights? That started in the early 1920’s but was shutdown by police.
I remember reading about a black woman who was a legislator in Mass. during the debates about legalizing gay marriages or not and she got really upset and tearful and said she could not in good conscious vote to put a people in a place that her family came from but one generation ago. That was a black woman comparing the issue of gay marriage to that of civil rights. I forget her name though
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Todd..
My post wasn’t directed at you or anyone else for that matter. Just my thoughts on the coversation as a whole.
What I was saying is I don’t see most of the different approaches being discussed currently as necessarily fighting for something less than. I see them as different parts of the puzzle.
If nothing else, the conversation itself is helpful to the Gay communtiy because all points of view can be heard.
To use King and X as an example again.. King was about a let’s do IT in a logical, piece by piece, peaceful way while listing every reason why we deserve it.
X said F*** you I want IT now on all levels and we’re going to take it while listing ever reason why we should take it.
I see that as saying we can do IT the nice way or the rough way. Both agreed IT needed to be done and both found common ground eventually.
I think both approaches are necessary.
P.S. No, I’ve never heard of The Society for Human Rights but I’ll look it up at your suggestion
“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.” – MLK, Jr.
No excuses. No more free passes. I’m an American citizen and I demand the full and equal access to the rights that I gave up my youth to defend!
There are some in our community who think we should take the high road and not get into bashing same-sex marriage haters. Well….I’m tired of waiting and asking for my rights. We need to “demand” them and not be so politically correct. Come 2010 and 2012, our elected officials should be reminded that they can no longer take our votes for granted any longer. Either put up or shut up.
If Spain can get marriage equality through legislation, a heavily catholic country that had NO civil unions legislation in place prior to marriage equality, then there’s no reason why we can’t do the same. We just have to keep on demanding it and not let the haters win. I’ve said this many times before, we need to go after religious cults and other tax-exempt organization that meddle in and advocate for discrimination and inequality against us. Many are already in violation of their 501c3 tax-exempt status, the Mormon sect is one and the Kinghts of Columbus, a catholic organization is another that comes to mind. Once they see how we can flex our muscle and take away their rights, then maybe they’ll back off a bit. Money is their god, first and foremost, and with money, comes power. We need to bash them back with impunity and hit them where it hurts most, in their pockets.
The issue here isn’t that anyone is really saying they’d be happy with second class status. The problem is that there are a lot of extremely irrational individuals in our movement who are turning this into an all-or-nothing conversation.
Conservatives, by the way, are happy to give us “nothing”.
The truth of the matter is that as much as we all WANT marriage equality NOW we cannot HAVE marriage equality now.
This is going to be a long process. The U.S. does not have a nationally-mandated marital standard, as marriage has historically been delegated to the states and is merely recognized, usually, by the federal government. So it’s not even really clear if the federal government even has the legal power to impose a national marital standard.
Hence the chaotic mess of battles being fought state-by-state. Judges are still human beings and even in the best times do have personal political and religious beliefs. The same goes for legislators. This is why attaining marriage in Massachusetts did not in fact open the floodgates to national marriage equality.
Unfortunately, in the minds of some of the more childish activists there is a single grand victory that they imagine can be won somewhere that will miraculously settle the issue all across America. This idea is unrealistic in the extreme.
Unfortunately, they’ve also taken to tar and feathering realists who acknowledge that this is going to be a long fight and who are willing to accept short-term gains like domestic partnerships as stepping stones to long-term success.
Any good general will tell you that wars must be won one battle at a time.