Marriage
. . . continued from Amanda's LJ because this is too long for a reply.
Personally, I think the issue dissolves into semantics. I think gay people have the right to live their lives as seems best to them, just as I do. I also think they have the rights to the same automatic benefits and legal relationships as leapt into being between Jan and I when we married. But I also think that can be established with a civil union. What I don't think anyone has the right to do is forcibly redefine a category or common usage for their personal satisfaction or justification. I don't think they have a right to demand that I or anyone else must say their union is a quote-unquote marriage, or that their partner is a quote-unquote wife or husband. Why does it matter if I or anyone else *call* it that? Shouldn't life be about living it, with the person you love, and not about what everyone *calls* you?
Sure. I don't give a damn what anyone else calls me . . . well, most of the time. The reason the marriage amendment (which is what's meant by "Bush's position," BTW; he backs an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as something that can exist only between one man and woman) isn't just about semantics, though, is that the term "marriage" has a legal meaning, and what that meaning is has a huge impact on people's rights.
It's like so many other terms in that it has a rich, varied, even contradictory set of meanings in the world of non-lawyers, but in law it has a very specific meaning (more on this in my next entry). "Discovery" in common parlance means learning new things, exploring the world, deepening your experience, right? But in law it means finding the facts in a case. Yawn, but law depends on precise terminology and so that's the term they've chosen, never mind what it means to normal people.
"Innocent" in common parlance means so many things, with theological resonances and images of purity. In law, it means "not proved guilty of this particular crime." A rather thin meaning, once again, but it's a legal term.
You get the point. In law, "marriage" means a set of contracts that together guarantee many, many rights and plenty of responsibilities. The law doesn't give a rat's patootie whether the two people love each other, make love, take care of each other in times of trouble, share the secrets of their hearts . . . nah. It's a legal term, dry but with the precision necessary in law.
Without that term, or some other legal term that is explicitly defined as the exact equivalent of marriage (which "civil union" is not, unfortunately), same-sex couples cannot receive the equal treatment you and I both think we should. Here are just a few things unavailable to same-sex couples, regardless of what they call their relationship:
-the right to sponsor each other for US citizenship. I know a Welsh woman whose work visa is about to expire, so that she will have to leave the US despite the fact that she wants to stay here and is by her lights married to an American. If she were legally married to her partner, she'd get a green card; the INS, or BCIS as it's called now, gives a buy to spouses. She can't legally marry her partner, so either they have to split up, or her partner has to emigrate to the UK (which, fortunately for them, will extend citizenship to the American partner). Or they can live in hiding and hope the BCIS doesn't notice her and deport her.
-the right to adopt each other's children. (A few states guarantee this right--family law usually being left up to the states--and whether the federal marriage amendment would permit these laws to stand is unclear.) If two women are raising a child together and the biological mother dies, that child is an orphan; his other mother is a legal stranger to him and has neither the right nor the responsibility to be his caretaker. Needless to say, this tragedy really happens in real life.
-the right to inherit each other's Social Security pensions. If you die the day after you collect your first Social Security check, poor Jan will at least have the consolation of collecting your pension as long as he lives. If, thirty years after Joy and I joyfully tie the knot in a bower behind the UU Church of Our Blessed Father Bruuuuuuuuce, I collect my first Social Security check and then pop my clogs,* the federal government gets to keep the rest of my hard-earned cash; Joy sees not a cent. Again, this is real. There is no state in the nation that can retrieve that money for her, nor can I pass it on to anyone else. Only to my spouse, and according to the federal government, I'm not going to have one.
-the right to decide what becomes of one's partner's body. I just met a man whose partner died several years ago; shortly after that, his partner's parents walked into their house and took his ashes. He has no recourse whatsoever because, again, he and his partner were strangers in the eyes of the law.
etc. etc.
No amount of semantics will resolve this problem; it is a matter of legislation. If the law--not their neighbors, not their families, not their church--called the relationship between two men or two women marriage (assuming, of course, that they opt for this designation), then these problems would disappear. As long as there is no such provision, then neither you nor I is going to get her wish that "the same automatic benefits and legal relationships" be conferred on same-sex couples.
As I said, I have a bunch more thoughts on the semantics of the word "marriage," but I'll post that tomorrow. Work calls.
*to repeat Ali's delicious expression. Do you know the US version of PoA takes these words out of Hermione's mouth? It's a scandal! An outrage! I'm going to write to my Senators.
Personally, I think the issue dissolves into semantics. I think gay people have the right to live their lives as seems best to them, just as I do. I also think they have the rights to the same automatic benefits and legal relationships as leapt into being between Jan and I when we married. But I also think that can be established with a civil union. What I don't think anyone has the right to do is forcibly redefine a category or common usage for their personal satisfaction or justification. I don't think they have a right to demand that I or anyone else must say their union is a quote-unquote marriage, or that their partner is a quote-unquote wife or husband. Why does it matter if I or anyone else *call* it that? Shouldn't life be about living it, with the person you love, and not about what everyone *calls* you?
Sure. I don't give a damn what anyone else calls me . . . well, most of the time. The reason the marriage amendment (which is what's meant by "Bush's position," BTW; he backs an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as something that can exist only between one man and woman) isn't just about semantics, though, is that the term "marriage" has a legal meaning, and what that meaning is has a huge impact on people's rights.
It's like so many other terms in that it has a rich, varied, even contradictory set of meanings in the world of non-lawyers, but in law it has a very specific meaning (more on this in my next entry). "Discovery" in common parlance means learning new things, exploring the world, deepening your experience, right? But in law it means finding the facts in a case. Yawn, but law depends on precise terminology and so that's the term they've chosen, never mind what it means to normal people.
"Innocent" in common parlance means so many things, with theological resonances and images of purity. In law, it means "not proved guilty of this particular crime." A rather thin meaning, once again, but it's a legal term.
You get the point. In law, "marriage" means a set of contracts that together guarantee many, many rights and plenty of responsibilities. The law doesn't give a rat's patootie whether the two people love each other, make love, take care of each other in times of trouble, share the secrets of their hearts . . . nah. It's a legal term, dry but with the precision necessary in law.
Without that term, or some other legal term that is explicitly defined as the exact equivalent of marriage (which "civil union" is not, unfortunately), same-sex couples cannot receive the equal treatment you and I both think we should. Here are just a few things unavailable to same-sex couples, regardless of what they call their relationship:
-the right to sponsor each other for US citizenship. I know a Welsh woman whose work visa is about to expire, so that she will have to leave the US despite the fact that she wants to stay here and is by her lights married to an American. If she were legally married to her partner, she'd get a green card; the INS, or BCIS as it's called now, gives a buy to spouses. She can't legally marry her partner, so either they have to split up, or her partner has to emigrate to the UK (which, fortunately for them, will extend citizenship to the American partner). Or they can live in hiding and hope the BCIS doesn't notice her and deport her.
-the right to adopt each other's children. (A few states guarantee this right--family law usually being left up to the states--and whether the federal marriage amendment would permit these laws to stand is unclear.) If two women are raising a child together and the biological mother dies, that child is an orphan; his other mother is a legal stranger to him and has neither the right nor the responsibility to be his caretaker. Needless to say, this tragedy really happens in real life.
-the right to inherit each other's Social Security pensions. If you die the day after you collect your first Social Security check, poor Jan will at least have the consolation of collecting your pension as long as he lives. If, thirty years after Joy and I joyfully tie the knot in a bower behind the UU Church of Our Blessed Father Bruuuuuuuuce, I collect my first Social Security check and then pop my clogs,* the federal government gets to keep the rest of my hard-earned cash; Joy sees not a cent. Again, this is real. There is no state in the nation that can retrieve that money for her, nor can I pass it on to anyone else. Only to my spouse, and according to the federal government, I'm not going to have one.
-the right to decide what becomes of one's partner's body. I just met a man whose partner died several years ago; shortly after that, his partner's parents walked into their house and took his ashes. He has no recourse whatsoever because, again, he and his partner were strangers in the eyes of the law.
etc. etc.
No amount of semantics will resolve this problem; it is a matter of legislation. If the law--not their neighbors, not their families, not their church--called the relationship between two men or two women marriage (assuming, of course, that they opt for this designation), then these problems would disappear. As long as there is no such provision, then neither you nor I is going to get her wish that "the same automatic benefits and legal relationships" be conferred on same-sex couples.
As I said, I have a bunch more thoughts on the semantics of the word "marriage," but I'll post that tomorrow. Work calls.
*to repeat Ali's delicious expression. Do you know the US version of PoA takes these words out of Hermione's mouth? It's a scandal! An outrage! I'm going to write to my Senators.