Expansion of marriage rights, some more thoughts on marriage and child-rearing

[suecochran]

I just took a look at my last post (about gay and poly marriage rights) again, and had some more things to say about that.

Comments

[pocketnaomi]

It's partly about gay divorce, and gay custody rights... it's also about gay insurance, and gay funeral arrangements, and gay hospital visitation, and gay medical power of attorney, and gay inheritance, and gay tax returns, and all kinds of other things that we've wrapped up under the heading of marriage and stuck together whether they make a whole lot of sense or not. There are several states right now which don't allow gay marriage which do allow both members of a couple who adopt together or birth a child by joint decision and surrogate biology to put their names on their child's birth certificate as parents, regardless of what sex either of them might be. That alone will allow continued parenting rights in the event of a breakup, whether the parents ever were married or not.

People get married for different reasons, because marriage is such a messy package of useful, practical, financial, emotional, spiritual, and/or parenting issues that which one(s) are important to any given partners vary case by case. Personally, I married the first time because Manny and I wanted to have children and didn't think they'd be treated as well if their parents weren't married before they were conceived or at least born. I might well make a different decision now on those grounds; views have changed a lot even in just the twelve years since I made that decision.

On the other hand, I liked being married. I didn't always, especially at the end, like being married to Manny, but I enjoyed the condition, felt it to have a different vibe for me than being simply partnered by choice and living together, and want to be married someday to Callie whether or not the federal government or the state we're living in at the time recognizes it. If we recognize it ourselves, it changes the vibe. And that's a totally different set of reasons now than I had the first time. I'm also, understandably, more concerned with issues like medical power of attorney and hospital visitation at 40 than I was at 28, though we could do those through domestic partnership papers as effectively as through marriage (note: I am well aware that there are people and institutions which won't obey either one, that is why I said as effectively as. I am not naive. I just think the people who won't accept legal partnership as a reason to let me into the hospital to see Callie won't accept legal marriage from another state either). So even for one person, over the course of a life, marriage can be a different thing, entered for different reasons. To attribute it to one reason across the board seems just silly to me.

[pocketnaomi]

I appreciate your comments, as always. I'm just curious about your final sentence - it read to me as if you thought that I was, or my friend was, attributing the desire for and fight to legalize gay marriage to just that one aspect: rights that involve divorce and custodial concerns. In addressing these issues, in the case that gay (or people in any other "non-heterosexual monogamous" marriage situation) parents are separating/divorcing and need to have arbitration or mediation to govern decisions on how to deal with the child(ren) they have, physical custody, visitation, and other parental involvement issues of child-rearing after the split-up, I did not intend to imply that this was the sole reason for any people to be fighting for equality in marriage rights.

To clarify, I certainly don't think that this is the only reason for seeking marriage rights for anybody, just as having children isn't the sole reason for getting married. As I approach my 49th birthday next week, I'm keenly aware of many other crucial life issues married people face, medical decision-making and hospital visitation as you mentioned, also inheritance, property rights, shared credit, etc. I just wanted to assert that I was merely commenting on this one aspect of why I support the legalization of gay marriage, child-rearing rights, since issues involving children's welfare have always been so near and dear to my heart, even more so since being a mom to Matthew and "step" mom to Lily, and especially since I have friends who have been deeply adversely affected by their situation as a gay non-biological parent after a break-up.

[suecochran]

Sorry, I forgot to log in before I posted the above reply. It's from me, duh .

[pocketnaomi]

Okay, I see now. Thanks for clarifying, Yes, I thought your friend's comment meant that the sole reason, or the only one important enough to really matter, for seeking marriage rights was in order to get permanent rights to parent the children of such a partnership in the deal.

I can certainly agree with you about the importance of parenting rights; I've spent the last year and a half in a bitter custody war myself, and I suspect the conflict won't be 100% over, even when the divorce is finalized, for years. And I know that there would be some serious issues involved if cflute and I were to break up (which, thank heaven, we have no intention of doing); she's become a beloved and active parent to the kids and would have only the recourse I chose to let her have in terms of access to their lives thereafter. I'm not so great a fool that, even in the case of a bitter separation, I would want to take someone out of my kids' lives who was good for them and to them... but she'd have to count on my continued willingness, and even though in my case that's a pretty safe thing to count on, I wouldn't personally care to be put in a position of having to count on ANYONE'S goodwill in order to be able to see my children.

Even if we get married someday, since the kids' parental rights are bound up by their biological parents, that wouldn't change. Stepparent visitation rights, where there are two legal parents in the picture in addition to the stepparent, are very rare, and that's nothing to do with what sexes the stepparents or the legal parents are. I think it's stupid that this is the case, but I expect it to take a lot longer for the society we live in to get a clue that there can be (and often are) more than two people who have reason to be considered legally affiliated with a child than for it to get a clue that the two people who are so affiliated don't need to be of opposite sexes. There are some inroads starting, in the form of relatives who successfully apply for access when the parent through whom they're related has died or had their parental rights terminated, but it's much less far along than the gay marriage movement.

Ah, well. Things take time.

[suecochran]

I really am sorry to hear about the custody war you have been undergoing, you just never know when these things (break-ups, divorce)will turn particularly nasty. I certainly hope that you and your sweetie will stay together for the rest of your lives - I expect to do the same with my sweetie. I am not yet divorced from John, but it's from inertia and not any other reason. There were so many other things that took priority in the past few years, and I did not feel up to dealing with all the paperwork, and going to court, etc. One of my commitments to myself this year is to get that done.

Yes, the conflict between parents does often last a lifetime, and of course does take its toll on the children. And I absolutely agree with you - step-parents or the boy/girl friends of parents often do assume the role of a parent, and can get shut out, in the case of the relationship breaking up, from the lives of the children that they often have come to love and care for just as much as, or in some cases more than, the child's "missing" biological parent. I've spoken with a few people recently who have gone through exactly that, and who feel very sad about it.

I, too, hope that we will find ways, in time, to support step-parents' involvement with children they have helped raise in the case of the break-up or divorce from the children's biological or adoptive parents. But as you say, it might be a while.