"What name would you like for the sexual, mental and spiritual union between a male and female which is undertaken for life? I understand from 'Roots' that at one time it was called 'Jumping the broom'."
And, before my mom tears him apart in a separate comment, I want to answer him, because I think it speaks to the difficulty of discussing the love that dares not speak its name.
Lambeth, I would like the name for a sexual and mental union between a male and a female which is undertaken for life to be called marriage. Just as I would like the same union between two men or two women to be called marriage. You will certainly notice that I took the word "spiritual" out of it. I don't believe the state, in this case California, but more generally, the United States, has any place in defining, naming, granting privileges or rights, to a spiritual matter. We have separation of church and state here (my dear Lambeth is across the ocean in England) and I expect it to stay separate. Just as the U.S. does not recognize, for example, a bar or bat mitzvah as the legal coming-of-age of a Jewish child, who like his or her Christian or Muslim or UU or atheist counterparts, must wait til 18 to be a legal adult. I don't want the government basing its legal definitions on religious ones. Historically, marriage has been the realm of the church, sanctified in church ceremonies. But with the secularization of government and the use of marriage as a state of being with legal rights (tax exemptions, inheritance, etc etc. You will all remember I am not a lawyer, just a lesbian), it has become necessary to secularize our definition of marriage. Which means dropping all the talk of gender.
Does this mean the Catholic Church will be forced to wed women to one another? No. No more than it has made Jewish congregations hold bat and bar mitzvahs for 18-year olds only. Or forced the St Patrick's Day Parade in NYC to permit GLBT groups. Or the Boy Scouts not to discriminate against gays (and atheists). The separation of church and state works both ways--the state cannot tell the church what or what not to accept, including gay marriage. It reminds me of that pro-choice bumper sticker: Don't like gay marriage? Don't have one!
I'm sure I could go on: about poll numbers showing an increase in people's acceptance of gay marriage, but our president's stance against it (because of his Christian values); about gay rights groups focusing very heavily on this issue without doing a good job at really defining it (trust me, my liberal and sympathetic straight friends couldn't tell you what the issues are, and they support us!). What I think makes me sad about California is that people's legal rights were voted on, much like a terrible high school popularity contest. When did rights become a popularity contest? Imagine if we had let Americans vote outright on the rights of, say, African Americans or Catholics or Jews or Native Americans at other points in our history, or even, in some places in this country, now (I'm not a legal scholar, so if we did have those kinds of votes, let me know). Justice Carlos Moreno, the one dissenting vote and the only Democrat, referred to gays and lesbians as one of the "disfavored minorities." There are others: should we start voting on their rights?
Which leads me to my trouble with states' rights, and the obvious arbitrariness of it, where I can get married in one state and not in another. This becomes even more ridiculous when you consider transgendered rights and marriage, as pointed out by a lawyer in a Texas case for a transgendered plaintiff (see "Is My Marriage Gay?" for a great op-ed on the issue)
“Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”
Easy enough for me, of course, because I'm in a state that has legalized gay marriage and granted me rights and protections therein. Even if those rights don't exist when I leave the confines of my state or when the matter is federal. Even though I'm safe here in Connecticut, it's a kind of second-class citizenship. And when the rights of some of us are diminished, or as they were today in California, completely taken away, we are all diminished.
That's not marriage, it's travesty.
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