Let gay couples marry
6:07 PM 8/09/03
There's absolutely no doubt: Certain segments of our society endanger the very future of marriage. Divorce is rampant as adultery, abuse and plain selfishness hew many unions. More and more, cohabiting couples shack up without a visit to an altar or a judge. Young folks are having kids out of wedlock in droves, creating social and tax burdens and driving up the number of single-parent households.
Clearly, the institution of marriage is under dire threat from many quarters. The gay community, however, is not one of them. In fact, some gay couples want to get married.
But that request has been met with shock and dismay by the Vatican, our president and a host of Wisconsin lawmakers. Opponents argue that letting gay couples marry would destroy marriage and family as we know them today. That view is based on misinformation, ignorance and plain bigotry.
What is marriage really for? Opponents of gay marriage would like you to believe that marriage is a sacred, static, time-honored custom. Messing with it would imperil the very foundation of our society, they say. This would be a powerful argument if it weren't nonsense.
In fact, the concept and practice of marriage has been redefined to suit different times, attitudes and cultures. For example, marriage once represented a union between a man and his property - until the property, women, rebelled and demanded more rights. Until relatively recently, interracial marriage was banned in parts of this country. In some other countries, parents still arrange marriages; love and commitment aren't considerations. Polygamy is the norm in some cultures today - while others protect the institution of marriage by stoning people to death if they commit adultery. Not here, fortunately, as the justice system would quickly run out of rocks.
Nevertheless, in our culture, many people - not just conservatives - believe that stable, successful families form the foundation of society. We must encourage marriage to create these families and confer legal protection to them.
Allowing gay marriage doesn't defeat this objective: It promotes it.
Today, gay men and lesbians - especially those with children - should no longer be denied the same social and legal status as the rest of America's families. Allowing gay marriage is an important step up the path to equality.
Reconciling church and state Religious principles have often impelled human rights advances, but in the case of gay marriage, the moral compass of some religious leaders has skewed away from fairness and equality.
Reasonable people wouldn't sanction discrimination against divorcees, single parents, unmarried couples or teen-age mothers just because the way they live contradicts some citizens' religious views. So why do we tolerate discrimination against gay men and lesbians because of attitudes based on religious teachings?
Same-sex couples appear ready to accept the full range of legal obligations and moral demands of marriage with equal or greater commitment as opposite-sex pairings. The argument that same-sex marriage will somehow undermine traditional families doesn't hold up.
Legal gay marriage wouldn't infringe on religious freedom. No one need abandon their deepest-held religious beliefs about homosexuals, no matter how bigoted. No minister need marry a gay couple if his church forbids it.
Achieving legal parity To promote marriage, special legal rights and protections have been established for married couples in areas such as inheritance, health benefits, taxes and child custody.
These advantages are denied to the nearly 600,000 same-sex couples who identified themselves on the 2000 census (and many more who probably kept their union a secret from census counters). Thousands of children are being raised by gay couples who cannot share the financial security and legal sanctuary enjoyed by married couples with kids. We should strengthen and protect these families in the same way we support all other types of families.
The critics are right that gay couples want more than a piece of paper from the state. The "homosexual agenda," as scaremongers like to call it, calls for nothing less than equality in the aspects of everyday married life taken for granted by straight couples.
Politics vs. reality The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that marriage is a fundamental freedom, and states cannot keep a mixed-race couple from marrying. So why don't gay couples enjoy the same basic privilege of our free society?
The answer rests mostly in fear and ignorance of gay lifestyles, which anti-gay propagandists seek to equate with incest and pedophilia. Lately, politicians who buy this defamatory bunkum have been saying that the nation must change its Constitution to limit marriage to the union of a man and a woman.
Aside from the fact that government has no business defining marriage in a religious context, the drive for a constitutional amendment puts social conservatives in the contradictory posture of promoting marriage for some people while trying to outlaw it for others.
In any case, laws governing marriage ought to remain the responsibility of state governments - and we believe Wisconsin ought to be among the first to update its laws to offer equality in marriage to gay men and lesbians.
Why not settle for civil unions? Meaning well, some lawmakers plan to forward a bill for a statewide domestic partner registry that would help formalize same-sex unions. But the bill drafted by Rep. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, creates a structure - "separate but equal" - that ultimately enshrines second-class status for gays and lesbians.
The Democrats, always confused and compromised, see their drive for same-sex civil unions as a way to avoid a losing debate over redefining marriage. This strategy is doomed from the start - because anti-gay factions want to make political hay with a marriage debate.
The Legislature is more likely to pass a "marriage defense act" that excludes same-sex unions from the definition of marriage. Perhaps duped by inflammatory rhetoric, more than a third of the state's lawmakers have signed on to this ill-conceived bill.
What must be done instead The Wisconsin State Journal editorial board has traditionally opposed government meddling in private lives; obstacles to strong families; and unequal protection under the law. State and national "marriage defense" measures deserve defeat on all those counts.
But it's important to do more than simply oppose legislation that would inflict these wrongs on a minority. Denying gay couples the right to marry condemns them to second-class citizenship and discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. This is plainly wrong.
If gay couples want to try marriage, bring 'em on. Maybe by applying a queer eye to the straight marriage, we can still save this essential but fading rite from history's dustbin. Given the zeal with which some gay couples are pursuing the right to marry, they may set a new standard for commitment.
The campaign for gay marriage has a long way to go. More than changing laws, it involves changing minds. But Wisconsin, led by a Republican governor, passed the nation's first gay rights law in 1982. We could once again show our nation the right path. The cause awaits courageous political leadership.
