Today’s Marriage Equality Arguments

One step forward, I hope

This morning, the Supreme Court heard arguments about the future of gay marriage in the US. The hope is, this will be the last time the issue is in front of the court, and in June, gay marriage will finally be legal all over the United States. If today doesn’t get you reflective, I don’t know what will… which of course means, today demands an open thread.

This morning, the APW staff got into a discussion about the importance of gay marriage in the context of other critical issues in the LGBTQ community. For the past few years, gay marriage has been sweeping up all the money, attention, and much of the activism. Putting so much emphasis on one issue—on a right that isn’t even universally important to all members of the LGBTQ community—risks allowing us to conclude that if the Supreme Court rules to make gay marriage legal in June, that we’ve achieved equality. That we can move on. And of course that’s far from true, particularly since we’ve been diverting attention and resources to pressing issues like the murder of trans-people, the intense suicide rate for gay teens, and the queer homelessness crisis, just to name a few.

But even though there is so much work to be done (the suicide rate for gay teens is an issue that is so pressing for me, having lived through multiple suicide attempts and near suicide attempts as friends came out in our super conservative hometown in high school), today is still a hugely important day.

For me personally, today is huge, and a moment I feared I wouldn’t see this early in my lifetime. I’ve been arguing this issue with everyone from social studies teachers, to church committees, to high school students, to debate clubs, since 1992. (My parents were active in the Open and Affirming Congregation movement in the early ’90s, and I was an outspoken pre-teen dragged to a lot of church meetings.) But writing for APW over the past seven years has reaffirmed my conviction that gay marriage is important, because marriage contracts have everything to do with rights and respect (and only a little bit to do with love). I’m regularly reminded of the wide ranging rights that my marriage contract gives me. From the right to pay more taxes (ha), to the ability to protect our kids, and serve as each other’s primary family member, to the ability to make choices for each other in medical emergencies, share health insurance, and be treated as a family wherever we travel in the world. Marriage is a magical institution in my mind, because to quote Anita Diamant, it…

… is an attempt at turning air into matter, transforming the ineffable workings of the heart into things that are “real.”

Marriage transforms something as seemingly intangible as love into the creation of a new family. The fact that signing a hugely binding legal contract made David my primary family member is the best kind of magic. He didn’t become my family just in theoretical ways, but in real, tangible ones that shape our lives every day. That is a right that needs to be extended to everyone.

But marriage equality isn’t just about the families it protects, it’s about deciding as a society to show foundational respect, and love to everyone. When I flash back to the tearful conversations I had at sixteen, with friends who had been convinced of their own worthlessness by the world around them, I know that the constant legal discrimination against gay people reenforced my suicidal high school friends’ worst fears about themselves. They couldn’t imagine a place for themselves in the world we lived in, and that constant discrimination pushed them further and further down the path of pills and razors. So today is not just important for families, it’s important for those twelve and fourteen and sixteen-year-olds, who need to see a way forward.

And with that, here is a round up of news and discussion about today’s court case, and your open thread. Here is to legal discussions, and living in hope.

When I bring a new person into the world this June, I hope and pray that they will come into a world that is in this small way, profoundly different than the world I grew up in.

xo,

Meg

Pink LineWhat’s Happening Today:

As of now, gay marriage is legal in 36 states. By the end of this Supreme Court term, either same-sex couples will be able to wed in all 50 states, or gay marriage bans may be reinstituted in many of the states where they’ve previously been struck down… Tuesday’s Supreme Court arguments focus on two questions: First, whether bans on gay marriage are constitutional; and second, if they are, whether those states with bans may refuse to recognize out-of-state gay marriages performed where they are legal. —NPR

Tomorrow’s oral argument is like opening night of a show that’s been in rehearsal for decades. From the early marriage activism of the 1970s to the strategizing of the ’80s; from the courtroom struggles of the ’90s to the surge in public support in the new millennium; now, at last, marriage equality could become a full national reality… Oral argument before the Supreme Court will take only a few hours on Tuesday morning, and hinge on an important question: whether marriage equality for gays and lesbians is a new right, or whether it’s an aspect of the existing right to marry. The couples argue that the Supreme Court has already recognized marriage as a fundamental freedom, and states cannot impose arbitrary restrictions on that freedom. The four states before the court argue that federal law has only recognized marriage as fundamental for straight couples—a claim that echoes the racist arguments against overturning interracial marriage laws in the 1960s. —The Advocate

WHAT’S people are saying:

Any mail from the Third Judicial Court of Michigan gets your attention. Nothing appears more legal than a notice to appear for jury duty. I don’t want to commit perjury, but how should I respond to this question in a juror questionnaire? It reads “Marital status:” with ovals next to five words: single, married, widowed, separated, divorced.” I was a bit stumped. I checked “married,” but in the remarks down the page I wrote: “Federal law considers me married, state law does not.” …This sort-of marriage is like being sort-of pregnant. It’s not possible. It’s laughable at times. The only people I see benefiting from an alternating marital status might be adulterers. —The Detroit Free Press

With the Supreme Court gearing up to hear arguments over what will be an historic decision on same-sex marriage later this month, a group of 100 conservative “scholars” filed a last-ditch attempt to convince the Court to put a stop to all this sin once and for all. Their argument, in short: legalizing same-sex marriage would directly lead to 900,000 more abortions in 30 years.

The logic—to use the term loosely—goes as follows: Legalizing same-sex marriage “undermines” traditional marriage. If traditional marriage loses its value, men and women are going to have less incentive to get married in the first place. Once that happens, similarly traditional values (like monogamy and waiting until marriage to have children) “will likewise crumble.” And everyone knows how much unmarried women love their abortions. —Gawker

What The Supreme Court Justices are Saying:

At the start of Tuesday’s arguments, Chief Justice Roberts said he had looked up definitions of marriage and had been unable to find one written before a dozen years ago that did not define it between a man and a woman. “If you succeed, that definition will not be operable,” the Chief Justice said. “You are not seeking to join the institution. You are seeking to change the institution.”

Kennedy said he was concerned about changing a conception of marriage that has persisted for so many years. Later, though, he expressed qualms about excluding gay families from what he called a noble and sacred institution. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. worried about shutting down a fast-moving societal debate.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked whether groups of four people must be allowed to marry, while Justice Anton Scalia said a ruling for same-sex marriage might require some members of the clergy to perform ceremonies that violate their religious teaching.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer described marriage as a fundamental liberty. And Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan said that allowing same-sex marriage would do no harm to the marriages of opposite-sex couples.

Justice Kennedy weighed in with skepticism as the advocates for gay marriage made their case. He said the definition of marriage “has been with us for millennia…It’s very difficult for the court to say, ‘Oh, we know better.’ he said.”

Several of the more liberal justices pressed the opponents of gay marriage to say how, exactly, extending marriage to same-sex couples could harm heterosexual couples who want to marry. Justice Ginsburg was particularly blunt on that point. “You are not taking away anything from heterosexual couples if the state allows gay couples to marry, she said.” —The New York Times

It’s your open thread! Hop on it (and here is to living in hope).

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