Congratulations Michigan!
Michigan has made it official: getting a two-for-one deal on insurance is the same thing as marriage.
Isn’t that wonderful!? The “defense of marriage” folks should be so proud! They’ve “defended” marriage to the point of getting the Michigan Supreme Court to declare in an opinion that marriage is nothing more than a financial arrangement where you can get insurance from your employer for someone other than yourself.
See, it was fairly well advertised when Michigan first passed its We-Don’t-Like-Gay-People amendment that the language “or any similar union” was also aimed at same-sex civil unions and opposite-sex civil unions. A lot of people are now saying they’re surprised by that. This is the huge problem with this issue, people are COMPLETELY UNWILLING to spend thirty seconds trying to THINK about this issue (yes, the way that I wrote those words is supposed to indicate yelling - I have a hard time keeping my cool about this). So you end up with this nonsense that a majority of Americans oppose gay marriage but support same sex civil unions. What!?!?!? How do you people who believe that think there is any difference. When we talk about gay marriage here, we’re not talking about who has the right to stand up in your church and get married, we’re talking about who has the right to take the advantages from insurance, inheritance, medical decision-making, childcare, and tax (sometimes but not usually on that last one because most two-income couples end up taking a hit on that). That’s what the people who say they support civil unions want to allow, but they’re mortified at the idea of calling it marriage. I’m really sorry that homonyms exist, people, but is it really that hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that the relationship that your church calls a marriage and the relationship that your government calls a marriage are two separate definitions? If you’ve gotten married, you should realize that the part where the bride, groom, officiant, and witnesses signed the certificate was when your civil marriage happened, while the “I now pronounce you…” was when your religious one happened. Two different things, just packaged together for your convenience.
Of course, if it’s the same thing, why should I be so bothered by this? Because the fact that people let themselves be so confused about it lets the conservative homophobes pull the kind of crap they did in Michigan and dozens of other states. They get people to vote for a bill or amendment they don’t agree with by calling it a “gay marriage” or “defense of marriage” issue. If they call it a gay marriage bill, they’re not lying because it would ban same-sex marriage, but when they omit that it also restricts civil unions, knowing full well that that would make a difference in most people’s minds, they are lying. They use this in political races too. The official Democratic position is the exact same as that supported by the majority - no to gay marriage, yes to civil unions (I’ve never claimed that Democrats have a smart position on this or anything else), but Republicans have gotten most people to believe that Democrats are pro-gay-marriage and that they aren’t. Those Republicans haven’t said anything about civil unions, so people assume that must be okay, but gosh, that Democrat wants to damage my marriage. By the way, if anyone can explain how exactly this could damage anyone’s marriage, I absolutely swear, you will get a prize; I’ll take you out to dinner or something, because I really want to understand what the hell this position means and I am willing to provide cash incentives.
So we end up with what Michigan got last week, a common law ruling stemming from an amendment that was passed under a banner of defense of marriage that codifies that your marriage is not about a relationship, it’s not about a commitment, and it’s not about a declaration before that you and your spouse are joined as one - it’s about getting a good deal on insurance. I think it’s now easy to see how this conflict can damage the institution of marriage, but it came from the side claiming to defend it. It reminds me of the short story “The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles” by Edmund Wilson. Read that story, not my synopsis, but suffice it to say that a quest to kill the snapping turtles that were attack a man’s ducks led, among other things, to him killing all of the ducks.
The conservatives, of course, simply declared victory and went home. Home to their persons-who-share-insurance-with-them.