It is wrong
to deny women and men the freedom to be married.
It is wrong
and Un-American.
It is
inhuman, against humanity.
There is a
continuing struggle over civil liberties and human rights in our culture, and
around the world. It is a struggle that divides Americans at every level; in
our governments, in our churches, even friends and families.
This debate
must be conducted on clear terms, and while it is true that the American people
have found justice in the struggle for marriage equality, the risk is still
great that this justice is merely a temporary reprieve.
Rights that
are acknowledged in one decade, can be rescinded in the next.
We must be
diligent, we must jealously defend the rights of all Americans, take up the
cause on the world stage, albeit as late comers, but nevertheless as champions
of human dignity for the remainder of the world whose cultures are still
struggling with these basic rights.
This discussion
surrounding marriage equality needs clarity, because it is all too often
confused by a whirlwind of emotions, rhetoric and religious fervor; it is obfuscated
by legal jargon, pseudo history and dubious theology.
As a
Christian theologian and historian who believes firmly in the separation of
church and state, as a person from a multi-racial family with a lifelong
interest in civil rights and the full enfranchisement of all citizens, as a
veteran who served this country out of a firm belief in American values and the
guarantee of freedom for every individual, as a heterosexual male raised in one
of the largest homosexual communities in America, as a person who has worked
and played with, befriended, worshipped beside and loved gay men and women, all
of my life; as an American, I feel a calling to raise my own voice in the face
of the storm, to still the whirlwinds of protest and oppose those people who
would like to put, my friends and family, my neighbors, my fellow Americans back
on the outside.
In 2012, we
reached a turning point in our culture.
For the
first time ever, the freedom to marry
was granted to same sex couples, not through the courts, not through the
legislature, but directly, by the voters themselves in three states; Maine,
Maryland, and Washington. By the process of voter referendum, same-sex couples were
granted the right to marry.
At the same
time voters in Minnesota rejected a voter referendum that would have enshrined
Minnesota’s opposition to same-sex marriage (already denied by state law), in its
constitution.
A watershed
moment had come.
In June of
2015, in a five to four ruling, the United State Supreme Court determined that
same-sex couple nationwide had the right to marry.
This is now
the law of the land, but the struggle for marriage equality is not over.
Since the
Supreme Court ruling, there have been numerous challenges to the rights of
American citizens. Clerks in government offices have refused to issue marriage
licenses to same-sex couples, bakers, and caterers and wedding planners have
refused to serve same-sex couples, citing their freedom of religion and their
moral objection to same-sex marriage as the grounds for their refusal.
There are
tens of millions of Americans living in every state of the union, holding
positions in government, on our courts and everywhere that we can think of who
would if they could see these rights overturned.
The struggle
for equality, for these basic human rights, goes beyond our borders, all people
of good will must keep up the fight for these and every other protection to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that are under threat by institutional
bigotry, racism, and hatred, by the spirit of injustice everywhere.
Let me be
clear and let me reiterate. To deny women and men the freedom to marry the
person of their choice is Un-American.
It is wrong
in many ways.
It is wrong because
it is an affront to the basic values and beliefs of American culture, tenets
which we hold to be both true, and self-evident, principles that are enshrined
in the charter documents that served as the justification for the foundation of
our nation.
These
principles must guide us. If we are not led by them, we will never be able to
exercise leadership in the world.
The Declaration
of Independence (adopted in Congress on 4 July, 1776) states, that all people
are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,
such as: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Declaration
states in its preamble that the purpose of the American legal code is to form
“a more perfect union…to establish justice…and to ensure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
The
perfection of our union demands, that the establishment of justice be moved to
extend the full franchise of citizenship to all Americans, regardless of their
sexual orientation, or whatever it is about them that the majority does not
like.
The perfection
of justice demand that all of our fellow citizens be free, and be able to live out
their lives in pursuit of their happiness.
To take up the
pen and fight for these truths, to fight for the recognition of truth, and the
equal application of these principles in the lives of all people, is the
essence of what it means to be an American, or a citizen of good conscience of
any nation, anywhere in the world.
To place
limits on who is protected by the Constitution, to curtail the rights of
individual citizens or groups, to deprive them of life or the richness of
married life, to rob them of their liberty-the liberty to choose their own
spouse, to censure their happiness by denying them the right of self
determination, simply because they have a different sexual orientation than
those in the majority, that is to argue for the establish a classist society,
of the type that we Americans rejected long ago, which we rejected in principle
when our founders wrote those charter documents.
I was raised
in an inter-racial family.
My
European-American mother was born in 1940 and spent part of her youth in the
segregated South.
She
remembers the era of Jim Crow, which both shames me and pains me to imagine.
In America,
not very long ago, my European-American mother and my African-American stepfather
would have been denied the freedom to marry one another due to the fact that
they are not of the same “race” (an arbitrary classification).
If that had
been the case, my younger brother would not have had the benefit of growing up
in a household with married parents. I would not have had the benefit of seeing
my mother’s relationship with my stepfather legitimized by society. A marriage
license would not have been granted to them. Even if they could have found a
minister, a rabbi, a pastor or a priest to perform a wedding service, their
union would not have been recognized by the state.
That would
have been reprehensible, morally objectionable, and a crime against humanity.
The act of
denying a woman or a man the freedom to marry the person of their choice is
just as wrong as it would be to force someone to marry against their will,
which is still commonly done, and is in fact the tradition, in many parts of the world.
To deny a
woman or man the freedom to marry a person of their own sex is just as wrong as
denying two people from two different ethnic backgrounds the freedom to marry
one another: a person of European descent the freedom to marry a person of
African descent, Asian descent or Native American descent.
It is wrong.
At an
earlier moment of our history, in different places of our country, this kind of
discrimination was legal. We permitted our prejudices and fears to overwhelm
our sense of justice and thereby denied women and men the right of
self-determination.
We moved
past this because it was wrong, because it is Un-American, because it strikes
against the basic notion that all people are created equal, equally loved by
their creator, equal in dignity and equally entitled to make free choices
regarding how they worship, and where; regarding who they associate with and
love.
In America, according
to our best traditions, our way life
changed and our laws eventually caught up with our conscience. We overcame this
form of bigotry, this fear of mixing the “races,” this racism and racial
discrimination, but we have not overcome bigotry all-together. We still fear,
hate and discriminate against our neighbors. We tolerate it when it is directed
toward our friends and family when the issue is human sexuality.
It is one
thing to discriminate against people in your private life. As Americans, we
have the freedom to assemble with people of our own choosing. No one can force
us to befriend people we do not want to befriend.
It is sad to
live in fear; I think it is, sad to watch someone who nurtures hate,
intolerance and bigotry. However, I am moved by more than sorrow when those
people seek to enshrine their fear and bigotry in the laws of the United
States.
I am moved
by anger when I see injustice, and moved by pride in my American heritage to fight
against it.
I am moved
by the ideals of the founders, moved out of desire not to be shamed by the
generations of Americans who went before me, who gave their lives in the
struggle to guarantee freedom and equality for all citizens, for all people
I am moved
out of a desire not to be shamed by those Americans who are fighting and dying still,
for the protection of those same rights, especially those Americans serving in the
armed, defending the nation even though many would have us return to treating them
like second class citizens.
The shameful
truth is this. We live in a classist society now.
Women and
men in same-sex relationships have been granted the freedom to marry, but those
freedoms are under assault. They are being challenged in the courts, in state
legislatures, by private citizens, at every level in our society.
If those
retrogressive forces get their way, they would deprive homosexual couples the
assurance that all heterosexual couples enjoy, and expect, simply because they
are married. At the most critical moments of their lives, when they are sick or
dying, or when tragedy suddenly strikes, they would deprive American citizens
of the right to visit their loved ones in hospital rooms, protection in court,
and the right to make decisions on behalf of their spouse.
We live in a
classist society right now.
It is
shameful.
The division
between classes is different than that which was between the patrician and
plebian, the commoner and lord, the freeperson and the slave. The markers of
classism in our society are less obvious than they once were. We do not mark
our class by the color of our clothes, by who is entitled to wear purple or don
the top hat, by who is allowed to learn to read and write, or vote. The markers
of classism in our society today are different, but no less distinct, and no
less defiant of reason to uphold it.
Classism in
our society is not codified in law, it is upheld by cultural norms, and goes
beyond the present discussion on the freedom to marry. Classism in American is
promoted by the ever shrinking European American majority as means of dividing
and oppressing any group of citizens in the minority; by religion, by language,
by ethnicity, by the color of their skin and by their sexuality.
As
Americans, it is our duty to resist the temptation toward these old habits of
bigotry. Whatever troubles the institution of marriage is having among
heterosexual couples; whether it is a rising divorce rate, marital infidelity,
the increasingly public exposure of spousal abuse, or simply the fact that
fewer opposite-sex couples are entering into marriage; whatever social forces
caused these troubles, the existence of these troubles is no reason to fear the
marriage of same-sex couples.
Same-sex
couples around the world who are seeking the right to marry, do so because they
ardently believe that the institution of marriage is a good in and of itself. In
America they fervently strive to preserve this right for themselves, a right that
all of their heterosexual peers posses, and give no thought at all to whether
they might be allowed to be married, or not. For same-sex couples in America, it
may prove to be merely a privilege, one that can be granted or revoked at the
will of a simple majority on the Supreme Court of the United States
Because I do
not fear the marriage of same-sex couples, it is difficult for me to comprehend
the fear that other people have regarding it.
Fear itself
is irrational.
Many people
fear the unknown, fear change, fear what is different.
I have heard
it said by the opponents of same-sex marriage, that same-sex unions; threaten,
undermine, weaken the institution of marriage among opposite-sex couples.
I have seen
no evidence for this, and though evidence for this has been asked for in court,
none has been presented that the courts have taken seriously.
Nevertheless,
opponents of same-sex marriage feel that this is true.
They believe
it.
The D.O.M.A.
law (Defense of Marriage Act), which has been declared unconstitutional, illustrates
this point.
Opponents of
same sex-marriage believe that the institution of marriage is under assault, that
they have lost a major battle, and that the war against the freedom to marry is
not over.
They believe
that their own marriages are threatened by the marriage of same-sex couples. As
a result, they believe that their traditional
way of life must be defended.
Until the
twenty-first century, in America, there had not been a tradition allowing same-sex couples to marry. However, in America, traditions change, grow, and become more
inclusive.
Right now,
in America, we are doing something different. This does not happen by fiat, there is no automatic process at
work. Changes in traditional ways of
life, traditional points of view, traditional beliefs, do not come without
struggle. There is always a push and pull, and then a watershed. America is
changing, even as one group of Americans grow more and more accepting of
same-sex relationships, another group becomes more recalcitrant. One group of
Americans seeks to use the powers of government, and law to narrow the
franchise of citizenship, while another group struggles to expand it.
This is a
tug of war, and the rights of every citizen hang in the balance.
When we are
faced with something new, something like same-sex marriage, if your imagination
fails you and you cannot find a provision in your tradition that allows a woman to marry a woman or a man to marry a
man. The solution to such a failure can often be found in creative thinking,
with dialogue, by sitting down at the table and talking to one another.
In America,
right now, in 2017, just two years after United States Supreme Court
established marriage equality as the law of the land. Our current President is
talking with his most ardent supporters about stacking the courts at every
level, with justice who will work to overturn that ruling.
Law suits
are being filed, laws are being passed in the states and ruled on by lower
court justices, in a way that creates constitutional conflict, guaranteeing
them a path to a new decision by the Supreme Court.
The battle
is not over.
Rights once
granted, must be fought for in order to be preserved.
These people
who enact new laws, that forbid men and women from marrying the people they
love, the people they choose, forbid them because they are different, curtail
their freedom even though they are American citizens, because their sexuality,
sexual preference, gender identity differs from the majority.
It is
because we focus more on our differences from our brothers and sisters, than on
our sameness as Americans, as human beings and as children of God that we
create and foster this utterly bigoted, immoral, unconscionable and Un-American
classism.
Not only
does this classism harm the individuals who are targeted by these laws, it
harms their extended families, their children included.
These
prejudices, and prejudice of any kind harms all future generations of
Americans.
It harms our
posterity.
It may come as a surprise to some, but gay people have
children.
They have children of their own. They have their own
progeny. Gay people procreate.
The children of gay Americans are American children.
Sometimes their children are born from relationships that
did not work.
Sometimes same-sex couples, like opposite-sex couples,
engage surrogates and sperm donors to facilitate their procreation.
Gay people have children.
Sometimes they adopt children who are orphaned, unwanted, or
not able to be cared for by their birth-parents. They foster children under the
aegis of the state, or as a service to members of their own family.
The children of people in same-sex relationships should be
able to witness and experience the relationships that their parents are in, and
behold them as fully legitimate.
Like me, and like my younger brother, they should be able to
say; “my parents are married.”
The act of denying women and men the freedom to marry the
person they choose, according to their own desire; has harmful consequences
that reach far beyond those relationships, that reach into the lives of the
generations that follow them.
Stigmatizing the relationships that their parents are in through
classism, and legalized discrimination, can only serve to undermine respect for
the institution of marriage, an institution that is at the heart of the
American social order and the foundation of our society.
The sad irony is this, fighting against the freedom of
same-sex couples to marry, far from defending the institution, actually delegitimizes
it, undermines it, generates resentment for it.
Americans are
intuitively distrustful of privilege, and unconsciously gravitate toward the
“underdog.” If we were to bring this classism back and preserve marriage as a
benefit for opposite-sex couples only, fewer and fewer heterosexual boys and
girls will want to participate in it themselves.
When I was
eighteen years old I rented a room in a house that I shared with a lesbian
couple. Twenty-nine years later those two women are still together as a couple.
They are the primary caregivers to a pair of their grandchildren.
Imagine
explaining to those children why these two women should not be able to have
their relationship fully endorsed by the state.
Imagine
telling them why their two grandmothers should not be married.
Imagine it.
Tell me
about the harm that is done to the institution of marriage, not your narrowly
defined traditions, but to the institution of marriage, by allowing these two
women to be married, to have their license and be wed; tell me how they would
not be harmed if we were to return them to the status of second class citizens,
Tell me
that, and I will tell you of harm done to their grandchildren by seeing them so
mistreated, then you will have to tell me how this is justified in order to
preserve a traditional model of
marriage.
Tell me of
what that reasoning is and I will show you how you are confused.
This is not
a game with a zero-sum outcome.
We are
talking about the rights of citizens, and the building blocks of family life.
If you take
the position that same-sex marriage undermines opposite-sex marriage, you are
casting the issue in zero-sum, terms.
The
suggestion is:
To grant our
homosexual citizens the same rights of any other citizen, the right to be
married and to have their marriage contract honored wherever they go, to expand
the franchise of citizenship in this way, encroaches on the rights of heterosexuals.
However,
there is no such proposition. No one is saying that we should grant same-sex
couples the right to marry, while restricting the rights of opposite-sex
couples.
If these
rights are rescinded by the courts, same-sex couples would be denied their actual
rights, their standing in court, recourse to the law.
When the
Supreme Court affirmed the rights of same-sex couples to be married, the opponents
of same sex-marriage lost nothing, nothing substantial, nothing except a social
(and legal) affirmation of their traditional
values
This is what
is good:
It is good to
have our friends and neighbors, our brothers and sisters; and yes, even our
mother and fathers, be who they are, living as they are, as fully enfranchised
members of our society, without fear, or shame, or stigma.
When I was
fifteen years old I had a girlfriend with a gay father.
She loved
her dad and was proud of him, and though she did not shy away from the struggle
of telling people her father was gay, it was nevertheless a struggle that she
should not have had to face.
Her father
took good care of her. Her father was in a steady relationship. If society
could have recognized that relationship as legitimate, allowed him to marry his
partner, made the issue of his sexuality into something that was not an issue
at all, his burden would not have been her burden. In fact, his sexuality would
not have been a burden to anyone at all.
It would
have been good to spare them that angst.
I am not
saying that granting same-sex couples the right to be married would resolve all
the social stigmas that are attached to homosexuality in an instant, but it
would address those stigmas and set them on their way toward resolution and
healing.
The fact
that my European-American mother was able to marry my African-American
stepfather did not resolve the issues of bigotry and racism that lingered
around my family, but had they not been able to be legally wed, that older
generation of my family, which was resentful of their union, would have felt
comfortable stewing in their fear that much more.
Granting
legitimacy to same-sex couples, through the institution of marriage will carry
them on their way toward healing as well, like the sutures that close an open
wound and knit common flesh together, telling gay Americans that they are
honored, valued and loved will go a long way toward ending a large array of
discrimination that these citizens face.
Marriage is essentially a contract between two
people.
[i] The act of denying same-sex couples the freedom to marry is only
one dimension of this bigotry, the harm that it does to their children and
families is another dimension, but there are more. Codifying this classist
structure in law, as D.O.M.A. did, had the effect of preventing hundreds of
thousands of adult women and men from making the most formal and solemn
commitment to one another.
That law was passed in order “to define and protect the
institution of marriage.”
[ii]
I argue that this D.O.M.A. harmed the institution of
marriage and our society, it has not helped either. Not only did that law
codify a narrow definition of marriage that privileges (only) heterosexuals by
defining marriage as meaning “…a legal union between one man and one woman as
husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ [as] refer[ing] only to a person of the
opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.’’
[iii] The harm it dis through
this narrow definition was substantial, because it limited the number of people
who were willing to participate in the institution, to support it and promote
it as a good, but who could not, because their relationship did not meet the statutory
criteria.
The harm D.O.M.A. did to individual people is one
thing, but it also harmed the United States Constitution. The passage of this
law restricted the power of Article 1, Section 10 without having gone through
the process of a constitutional amendment.
The Defense of Marriage Act states:
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe,
shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial
proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a
relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage
under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right
or claim arising from such relationship.
[iv]
More than simply preventing same-sex couples from having
the benefits, the legal privileges, rights of inheritance and tax benefits that
heterosexual couples can enjoy (or abuse) without anyone standing in their way;
this unconstitutional denial of rights, this classism, if it were to return,
would rob American girls, it steal from American boys a future in which they
can look forward to having their relationships with whatever partner they
choose, acknowledged, valued and accepted by their contemporaries.
It would take from them the hope of being able to
celebrate their love for their future husband, or future wife in the same way
that every other American is able to do.
It would inform them, wrongly, that they are less
American, less human, less deserving of the good stuff in life.
It would tell these girls and boys, who, though gay,
are still American, but who, as members of a persecuted minority, that because they
are different from ninety percent of their peers, that they are less deserving,
and less good.
These are
the messages we used to send, and we cannot return to a place where we are
sending these messages again.
Imagine an
American girl, your daughter or niece, your granddaughter or cousin, your
sister; imagine her, and imagine that it is you yourself telling her that her
hopes for a wedding, her dream of wearing a beautiful dress, a wedding-gown, of
being led down the aisle toward the one person with whom she wants to spend the
rest of her life; imagine telling her that her dream is nonsense, that it is never
going to happen, that it should never happen-not in this country, not according
to your tradition.
People are
not encouraged to enter marriage blindly, quite the contrary.
People are
encouraged to enter into marriage from relationships that are already
established, already tested, with people upon whom they already rely, already
trust, and already know.
The time for
marriage comes when the couple has discerned, through experience, that this one
person is the person who completes them, who understands the other, who is best
able to support their partner, in and through all the unknowns that will be
coming ahead them; through the good times and the bad, whether there is
sickness or health, whether poverty or wealth.
The time for
marriage comes when the couple has discerned that their partner is the one
person who they want by their side for the rest of their lives; to have, and to
hold, to love and to cherish.
Imagine
telling this American girl, or this American boy, these American children who
dreams of wedding rings and spoken vows, of sharp suits and flowing gowns, of
tuxedos with tails, and family gathered together to hear her and him say that
they have found the person they love above all others and they ready to settle
down, make a home, and provide for them, with them, together; imagine telling
that girl and that boy that this dream for a future of happiness, of security,
a dream which we encourage all girls and boys to dream, is a dream they should
stop dreaming because the framework of your tradition
is not expansive enough to include them.
Imagine
telling these children, these hundreds of thousands of American children that
this dream is not for them because they are different, because the person they
love, or will come to love is the same gender as they.
Imagine
telling them this and try to make sense out of why their gender matters, in
light of all those other considerations.
Imagine
telling them this, and know; that in all of our stories, in all of our great
literature, in all of our epics, in our poetry, it is invariably the villain
who stands in the way of love.
In an argument made before the Supreme Court of Iowa,
[v] the people and
organizations that were defending Iowa state law (at that time), prohibiting
same sex couples from being married, in keeping with the federal Defense of
Marriage Act (then the law of the of the land), allowed Iowa to not acknowledge
the marriages of same sex couples legally entered into in other states; the
proponents of that unjust law cited these basic interests:
The first three interests are broadly related to the advancement
of child rearing. Specifically, the objectives centered on promoting
procreation, promoting child rearing by a mother and a father within a
marriage, and promoting stability in an opposite-sex relationship to
raise
and nurture children. The fourth interest raised by the County addressed
the conservation of state resources, while the final reason concerned the
governmental interest in promoting the concept and integrity of the
traditional notion of marriage.[vi]
The essence
of these arguments amounts to a request that the tradition of heterosexual marriage and heterosexual marriage only,
be preserved, over and against any other form of marriage. However, these
arguments failed to address what compelling interest the state had in denying
the freedom to marry, to same-sex couples.
The
arguments were merely a plea to the court, a plea to allow the State of Iowa to
continue the systematic disenfranchisement of a group of its citizens, to
continue the practice of telling gay women and gay men that they are not, in
fact, full citizens, and that their hopes for themselves, the hope to be
married, their hopes to raise their families in the state of wedlock should
never be realized.
The Supreme
Court of Iowa ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, twelve people who had the
courage to challenge Iowa’s discriminatory laws. The ruling cited other famous
cases in which the issue of equal protection before the law was the central
issue, cases like: Dread Scott v.
Sanford, and Brown v. Board of
Education.
On the issue
of equal protection the court found that:
With respect to the subject and purposes of Iowa’s marriage laws, we find
that the plaintiffs are similarly situated compared to heterosexual persons.
Plaintiffs are in committed and loving relationships, many raising families,
just like heterosexual couples. Moreover, official recognition of their status
provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational
rights and responsibilities, just as it does for heterosexual couples. Society
benefits, for example, from providing samesex couples a stable framework within
which to raise their children and the
power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just
as it does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples. In short,
for purposes of Iowa’s marriage laws, which are designed to bring a sense of
order to the legal relationships of committed couples and their families in
myriad ways, plaintiffs are similarly situated in every important respect, but
for their sexual orientation.
[vii]
In the
opinion of most people, including myself; the Supreme Court of Iowa is not a
radical court.
Iowa is not
a radical state.
To use a
generic term; Iowa is “America’s heartland,” is a truism, Iowa is both
geographically and politically central to the nation.
Neither the
“left wing” of the American electorate, nor the “right wing” dominates this
state. In consideration of the fact that the Supreme Court in Iowa rejected the
arguments of those who sought to continue a tradition
of discrimination, imagine yourself explaining those arguments, imagine
yourself justifying a right to discriminate, to the American girl, or the
American boy in another state; why the justice that was found in Iowa should
not be had in California or Maine or any other territory, protectorate, or
sovereign land where the United States Constitution is the law.
The Iowa
Supreme Court found correctly, that allowing same-sex couples the freedom to
marry constitutes a public good.
It
strengthens families.
It promotes
marriage.
It empowers
people who are partners in same-sex relationships to care for their loved ones
at the end of life.
They also
found that, while the state of marriage is essentially contractual, being
married is more than just being in a contract with another person. It is a
change in social status, a status to which same-sex couples cannot obtain if
they are legally prevented from being married.
What the
court has arrived at through this insight is the fact that denying these rights
to same-sex couples perpetuates an unjust and classist society in which social
advancement is available to some but not to others.
The court
found that:
“The benefit
denied by the marriage statute—the status of civil marriage for same-sex
couples (prohibiting same-sex couples from being married)—is so “closely
correlated with being homosexual” as to make it apparent the law is targeted at
gay and lesbian people as a class.”
[viii]
In Iowa it
was found to be wrong, un-just, and I will say Un-American, to deny women and
men the freedom to marry, to deny girls and boys the freedom to hope that they
could be married, because to deny people these freedoms perpetuates a classist
society and the struggle against classism, the struggle for civil rights, for
equality and equal protection under the law speaks to the heart of the American
experience.
As I have
stated earlier, this is our best tradition.
In 2015, in
Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States
Supreme Court, in a 6 – 3 decision, with an opinion written by Justice Kennedy,
held the same things, that “the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent
in the liberty of the person.”
[ix]
To be remain
true to this decision and forge ahead with a new American tradition we must
stay engage. The struggle for freedom must continue; in the streets, through
the press, by influencing law-makers, and finally, if those efforts fail, we
are must continue to defend these rights in court.
We must
remain diligent, because those who are opposed to these freedoms are, are they
are possessed with a religious zeal to see their fellow Americans
disenfranchised, cut off, ostracized at every level of our society.
In 2009,
when the Iowa Supreme Court made this decision they recognized that tide was turning
away from gay people. State legislatures across the country had moved to write
laws that discriminated against gay people.
The Iowa
Supreme Court said that “it cannot allow discrimination to become acceptable as
tradition;” that “some underlying reason other than the preservation of
tradition must be identified,”
[x] if we are going to limit a
minority segment of the population from having access to the same rights and
privileges as the majority.
After
rejecting the arguments from tradition,
the Iowa Supreme went on to look into the other issues that were raised by the
State of Iowa in defending its statute: issues such as whether it is best, or optimal
to raise children in dual gender households; whether marriage is meant to serve
the function of procreation.
The Iowa
Supreme Court found the arguments in support of those ideas to be unconvincing.
There is no data supporting the notion that opposite-sex couples raise children
better than same-sex couples. Furthermore, opposite-sex couples are not
required to procreate as a condition of their marriage.
The United
States Supreme Court agreed.
To promote
classism by denying rights to a whole segment of citizens is wrong.
It is unjust
to deny to the right of marriage to American citizens.
American
citizens, those Americans that are homosexual, make up a vital part of our population.
The United States Census
[xi] taken in 2010, tells us that
same-sex couples makes up 0.5 percent of all households in America.
Prior to The
Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in most states they were denied
the right to marry, and the marriages that were entered into legally, in the
few places where it was legal, did not have to be recognized.
This group
of people, American citizens, numbering over 1,200,000; were kept in the status
of second class citizens. A return to those shameful circumstance threatens the
unity of the nation.
Americans
cannot allow for the passage of laws that restrict the franchise of citizenship
to over 1,000,000 Americans, we cannot allow that to define our nation; dis-united.
We cannot
return to a place where such restrictive laws set this whole group apart and
deny them the basic liberties that every other citizen may enjoy.
One million
people is three times the population of the city where I live; Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
There are
twelve states, including the District of Columbia whose entire population is
less than the number this number.
There are
nearly one and a half million American citizens who are paying taxes,
contributing to our economy, working as doctors and lawyers, working as
mechanics and carpenters, as scientists and clergy who are being threatened
with being disenfranchised, denied the right of self-determination, the ability
to pursue their own happiness. just because they are different, not different
in the quality of the contribution they make to our culture, not different in
regard to their being more [or less] law abiding, but different in regard to
who they love.
Gay women
and gay men will always exist as a part of our population. They will be with us
in roughly the same proportion to the rest of the population as they are today,
but the number of actual human beings will continue to grow as our population
grows.
Imagine for
a moment all of these people, these million people and add to that number all
of the others who are like them, gay, but who have not submitted to being
counted. Imagine them filling every football and basketball arena, every
baseball field, every hockey stadium and every civic center in the country, and
now imagine how it is that we can deny this great assemblage of citizens the
rights of full citizenship.
How do we
explain that? What basis exits for shutting them out?
As I
mentioned at the outset, the 2012 election marked a turning point in the
struggle for freedom and basic rights for an oppressed and marginalized group
of our fellow citizens. Ballot initiatives in three states granted the right
for same-sex couples to marry, and in one state, while in Minnesota, a measure
to amend its constitution, that would have restricted the freedom to marry,
failed.
In 2014 the
United States Supreme Court of the United States took up several issues
pertaining to the freedom to marry.
In 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, in a 6 – 3 decision, the Supreme Court lifted
all restrictions on the rights of same-sex to marry.
Resistance
to same-sex marriage did not go away.
In Alabama,
State Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roy Moore, ordered the courts of his state
to refuse to acknowledge this decision.
Many other
assaults on this ruling have been launched from multiple states, and from
multiple industries.
The Trump
administration is seeking to undermine the rights of Americans, who happen to
be homosexual in many ways, beyond the issue of marriage. It is reported that
they are looking for ways to make sexual preference a fireable offence.
If
conservatives of that ilk get their way, there will be no equal protection for
this class of American citizens.
Do not
hesitate, the time is now.
Protect the
institution of marriage and the rights of al Americans.
Defending
the traditions of a by-gone American culture, is not a defense of marriage, it
is a perpetuation of injustice, and immorality. If you think otherwise,
remember this:
People who
are divorced may re-marry, even if their divorce was brought about by
infidelity, through the commission of adultery, by spousal abuse or other
miss-deeds.
A person who
murders their wife, their husband or their children, a person who murders their
whole family may re-marry, even while they are in prison on death row, but if
the forces of conservatism, and so-called “traditionalism” are free to
discriminate against a whole class of Americans, then a woman who loves a woman
or a man who loves a man may not have that love celebrated and recognized as a
legitimate.
When the
legal analysis failed, and court after court has rejected the arguments for
discriminating against gay people. When the social analysis has been brought in
and we are forced to think objectively about the vast numbers of actual people
who would be disenfranchised if these discriminatory laws were to return, the
real motivation behind the desire to exclude same-sex couples from participating
in the institution of marriage is exposed and it is not tradition, but religion.
The Iowa
Supreme Court acknowledged as much:
Now that we have addressed and rejected each specific interest advanced
by the County to justify the classification drawn under the statute, we
consider the reason for the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from civil
marriage left unspoken by the County: religious opposition to same-sex
marriage. The County’s silence reflects, we believe, its understanding this reason
cannot, under our Iowa Constitution, be used to justify a ban on same-sex
marriage. While unexpressed, religious sentiment most likely motivates many, if
not most, opponents of same-sex civil marriage and perhaps even shapes the
views of those people who may accept gay and lesbian unions but find the notion
of same-sex marriage unsettling. Consequently, we address the religious
undercurrent propelling the same-sex marriage debate as a means to fully
explain our rationale for rejecting the dual-gender requirement of the marriage
statute.
[xii]
The religious beliefs of a person or group of people,
no matter how influential they are or how large that group is, cannot be the
basis of law in Iowa or anywhere else in the United States.
We believe in a separation between Church and State,
this is an American ideal, it is our tradition
and as an American I hold the conviction that Congress should not pass any
law respecting the establishment of religion. Neither can we leave the word
religion out of our legislation and put in its place the term tradition; we cannot do this if our goal
is to preserve a secular culture that is free from religious persecution and
tyranny.
I hold a Masters of Arts in theology, which I earned
at a Catholic school, St. John’s University, in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Even though I am a Christian, and Catholic, I do not
believe that my values should be used as the basis of laws that govern Hindus,
Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Animists or Atheists.
Furthermore, because I believe in the separation of
Church and State, I also believe that religious institutions and their
ministers; which are given the authority by States to perform marriages, should
not be dictated to by the State regarding who they are allowed to a marry.
If a particular church does not want to marry
same-sex couples, they should not be forced to, and if another church wants to
marry same-sex couples, they should not be prohibited.
The matter should concern only the individual, and
their church.
The State should not interfere.
As a Christian theologian and historian, I can tell
you that the scriptures do not contain very much reference material on
homosexuality. There are a few mentions of it, and I grant that the references
which are there, do condemn homosexuality. However, it should be noted that the
scriptures condemn all sexuality outside of wedlock and are suspicious of
sexuality within wedlock as well.
According to the Judeo-Christian tradition sex in general is something to be avoided.
Note well, sexual mores did not find their way into
the Ten Commandments, other than to condemn adultery.
Jesus did not talk about homosexuality at all.
St. Paul mentions homosexuality in his letter to the
Romans 1:26
[xiii]
where he says that it is unnatural and an abomination.
The same word, abomination is also used in the
scriptures to describe the act of eating shellfish.
Abomination is a strong term, but one that is used
often to describe any activity that is prohibited by the laws that are written in
the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Note well, St. Paul condemns homosexuality, and he would
also prefer that every person be celibate.
[xiv] He thought that the best
situation for all Christians would be for men to live in communities with men,
and women to live in communities with women, and that everyone should be
celibate while awaiting the return of Christ.
Of course, he knew that this situation would not
obtain. Nevertheless, for St. Paul this was the ideal. As far as Christian
idealism goes, it is impracticable, we cannot follow St. Paul.
The human race would be no-where if we did.
We may conclude this, the Judeo-Christian theology
does not speak realistically or
convincingly on issue of human sexuality.
Jesus was concerned with is justice, not sexuality,
but justice, that we have ethical relationships with one another, that we
respect each other’s personhood, and treat one another as we would like to be
treated ourselves.
When Jesus commented on the law he always turned to
this point; love one another as God has
loved you. This, to Jesus is the whole of the law and the entire teaching
of the prophets, which is something we cannot fulfill if we are busy trying to
exclude our neighbors from the full franchise of citizenship.
The issues
presented in the struggle for marriage equality is one of Justice.
Moreover, the
freedom to marry is about more than marriage equality, it is about equality per se.
It is about
justice, and the rights of citizenship.
It is about
a recognition of the principles that are at the foundation of our social order,
the truths that we hold to be self-evident, that all people are created equal
and endowed by their creator with rights that are inalienable, and that among
those rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
There can be
no traditions in America that are not
in the service of this tradition.
To deny
American women and men the right to marry the person of their choice, or to
deny to American girls and boys the hope of future happiness, the right to
determine the course of their own life, to deny them their liberty, is a gross
violation of the American way.
Works Cited
The Declaration of Independence,
http://www.constitution.org/usdeclar.pdf
The Defense of Marriage Act, PUBLIC LAW 104–199—SEPT. 21,
1996, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-
bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ199.104.pdf
In the Supreme Court of Iowa, No. 07–1499, filed April 3, [1]2009,
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20090403iowa-text.pdf
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, No. 14–556. Argued April
28, 2015—Decided June 26, 2015*
OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET
AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED
STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
United States Census, http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en&_ts=
New America Bible, Romans,
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/romans/romans1.htm
[i]
Article 1, Section 10 of the United States Constitution prohibits any state
from impairing contracts that are entered into in other states, it requires
each state to honor the terms of a contract that are made in any other state.
[v]Iowa
Supreme Court, No. 07–1499, filed April 3
rd, 2009
[vi]
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20090403iowa-text.pdf
[vii] (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20090403iowa-text.pdf)
[viii] (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20090403iowa-text.pdf)
[ix]
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, Syllabus, OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES,
DIRECTOR, OHIO, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL., CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT, No. 14–556. Argued April 28,
2015—Decided June 26, 2015*
[x]
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20090403iowa-text.pdf)
[xii]
Iowa Supreme Court, No. 07–1499, filed April 3
rd, 2009
[xiii]
(http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/romans/romans1.htm)
