I've long argued that recognizing that gays have the right to marry does nothing to harm my own marriage, or why I feel my own marriage is special, or blessed, or witnessed before God -- any more than the state recognizing a marriage that I am sure will be a horrible mistake, or one celebrated in a faith I do not share (or no faith at all). Gay marriage doesn't destroy marriage, it enhances it, spreads it outward, shares the wealth -- and so, like sharing anything good, increases it accordingly.

Conversely, according to this article by David Quigg, restricting marriage may be counter-productive, may make marriage more of a "niche" phenomenon than it already is. 

Face it:  marriage, as an institution, is in some trouble. Not only is divorce rampant, but more people are choosing to marry much later, or even never marry at all -- or marry not because it changes how they feel about each other (as if marriage for "love" were a Biblical tradition) but because it guarantees certain legal rights. Restricting a group that wants to (and, by rights, ought to be able to) marry from doing so doesn't make marriage any more viable of an institution in that sort of environment. It makes it even less relevant.

Denied the right to marry, our friends nonetheless give each other all the care, love, honesty, loyalty, support, shelter, and shared laughter that marriage is all about for me. You can't spend much time around couples who accomplish all that in their daily unmarried lives without realizing that you don't need a marriage to love each other well. My marriage begins to seem about as essential as my appendix. Vestigial.

[...] If the word "marriage" is so fragile that it needs to be protected from the loving couples I'm privileged to call my friends, go lock the word up in a pretty box. Keep the locked box in your church. Share the blessing inside the box only with those you deem worthy. Let only those worthy ones be called "married." Refuse to recognize the legitimacy of gay weddings or secular straight weddings or devout straight weddings held within the walls of churches that interpret God's words differently than you do. Expect those churches to look with the same disdain on the so-called "marriages" of your faithful.

Pick a new name for the civil contract I have with my wife. Give it a clunky name if that will help you stomach laws that grant gay civil unions and straight civil unions the same set of rights now enjoyed only by married heterosexuals. Give it a name like an IRS form. I simply don't care. No name can change what my wife and I have with each other.

We don't need your blessing.

Stay out of our lives.

The Religious Right has harmed Christianity, as a whole, by making it seem judgmental, theocratic, intolerant, and obnoxious -- "Your choices are to either believe as we do and vote as we do and live as we do say you should -- or keep your mouths shut and 'think of England.'" The result has been a discouragement of those who feel their Christianity has been hi-jacked by bullies, and an active resentment and anger from those who aren't Christian.

Ironically, they run the risk of making "Holy Matrimony" much the same, by trying to keep it pure, unsullied, unchanging, restricted only to the Right Kind of People, i.e., Our Kind of People. It's like the French Academy, striving to keep the language pure, to kick out or ban any "riff-raff" language borrowings from other lifestyles languages that would pollute the pure precious bodily fluids language that is Francaise. We laugh at the French, even while the Religious Right tries to do the same through their "ownership" of "marriage."

The inevitable result, in this era of ever-diminishing church-going and denominational membership, will be more people saying, "Hell, we don't need to kow-tow to some Christianist ceremony to bind our lives together in love. We'll buy some rings, throw a party with friends, and call it done." And, eventually, the law will accommodate that, through common law or civil marriage, or even civil unions fleshed out to be just like Marriage but without using that oh-so-precious "M" word for something of which The Righteous Do Not Approve.

Which would be a shame, really. But the shame will not be on those trying to "redefine marriage," but those who treat it as something too precious to share and invest in, and so, like the bad servant in the Parable of the Talents, will lose what little they were given, kicked out into the darkness to "weep and gnash their teeth." If marriage is threatened, it's not by those who seek to expand its reach, but those who try to keep it an unchanging little club of their own devising, "NO GAYZ ALLOWED."

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From Newsweek's article this week on gay marriage:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists.

The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

Or, broken down another way, this list of how the law should read if we really wanted to have Traditional Biblical Marriages:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a  virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden.  (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

Ah, traditional, Biblical, Scriptural marriage. Ain't it grand?

Not, of course, that the social conservatives who argue that gay marriage would be wrong because it's not "traditional' or "Biblical" probably don't mean any of these things. Well, probably not. But it does raise the issue of why, then, they feel free to pick and choose what makes a "traditional, Biblical, Scriptural" marriage and what can now be safely ignored.

If your personal belief says that gays shouldn't marry, that's your prerogative. Feel free to not marry someone of the same gender as you are. But don't wrap yourself up in Scripture and call yours the only truly Christian position; Scriptural description of what sort of relationships were not only blessed but prosperous in the Old Testament is nothing like the Ozzie & Harriet world that the Christian Right would have us believe we should be living in.

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Commenting on a case where a husband and wife have been arrested for kidnapping and torture of a runaway child, Dan Savage notes:

Kelly and Michael Schumacher are legally married--and they can stay legally married, even if they're found to be guilty of this horrendous crime. They can stay legally married even if the decomposing remains of twenty other teenagers are found buried in their backyard. Their marriage license cannot be revoked.

If Michael dies in prison, Kelly can remarry--even if she's serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If Kelly decides to divorce Michael, he can remarry--even if he's sitting on death row. He can remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce until he runs out of prison pen pals.

Because the courts have declared that marriage is so fundamental a right that it cannot be denied to convicted rapists or to serial killers.

But it's a right that's denied to me and my boyfriend. Because we're both men and that ain't right.

It's all about Family Values, you know.

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The Vatican is dead wrong on this. Unfortunately, that will mean some other deaths, too.

Gay rights groups and newspaper editorials on Tuesday condemned the Vatican for its decision to oppose a proposed U.N. resolution calling on governments worldwide to de-criminalise homosexuality. The row erupted after the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations told a French Catholic news agency the Holy See would oppose the resolution, which France is due to propose later this month on behalf of the 27-member European Union.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would "add new categories of those protected from discrimination" and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage.

"If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations," Migliore said. "For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure," Migliore said.

Now, I make no bones about my support for gay marriage. But I would hope that most civilized and moral people aren't so paranoid about the prospect that they'd rather see gay people executed.

Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy's leading gay rights group, said the Vatican's reasoning smacked of "total idiocy and madness".

"The French resolution, which is supported by all 27 members of the European Union, has nothing to do with gay marriage. It is about stopping jail and the death penalty for homosexuals," Grillini told Reuters.

The resolution is to be presented by Rama Yade, France's state secretary for human rights.

Human rights groups say homosexuality is still punishable by law in more than 85 countries and by death in a number of them, including Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

Well, surely there must be some complex and nuanced thinking behind the Vatican's stand, right?

Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said "no-one wants the death penalty or jail or fines for homosexuals" ...

Nobody but those countries that have laws that call for such punishments, that is.

... but defended Migliore's comments, adding that the Vatican was in the majority on the issue.

"It's not for nothing that fewer than 50 member states of the United Nations have adhered to the proposal in question while more than 150 have not adhered. The Holy See is not alone," Lombardi said.

Ah, I see. Morality is decided by a majority vote. That's ... interesting theology there, Fr. Lombardi. I'm sure the Christian Martyrs would be in full agreement. Not to mention Someone Else who was put to death by a majority vote of the mob.

But regardless, arguing that countries should not be criticized or pressured to stop imprisoning or executing homosexuals for fear that uppity gays will then demand marriage right is, frankly, like arguing that countries should not be criticized for encouraging rape and child brides because otherwise women might think they deserve the vote. 

If the Vatican is so terrified of "gay marriage" that they are unwilling to do anything that even hints of legal protection for gays, then they are, frankly, dead wrong.

It's just that it's the executed gays who will have to pay the price for the Vatican's error.

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"Leans" from a mobster point of view, that is.

After discovering that Pete Sessions, new head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, had the audacity to meet with the (gasp) Log Cabin Republicans (a group of gays that, because of other ideological alignment, works within the Republican party), the FRC made public their displeasure.

According to a press release from the pro-gay "marriage" group, Log Cabin Republicans, one of the first stops for the newly elected Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), was the fundraising dinner for the homosexual organization. The release states that Representative Sessions said that the GOP cannot win elections and reach out to voters if it continues to oppose the issues that Log Cabin stands for, presumably including same-sex "marriage." My team sought clarification from Sessions' office and was told he did speak to the Log Cabin group, but that a copy of his remarks was not available.

If the Log Cabin portrayal is true, it is disturbing on a number of accounts. One, Sessions' new position as the head of the NRCC is to train and recruit new candidates for the Republican Party. If this is his idea of "campaign advice" then the Republicans better prepare for a longer term in the minority then they faced prior to 1994.

Secondly, if the GOP is serious about reaching out to new voters, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, then it should look closely at the exit polls on issues important to families. Both minority groups strongly support traditional family values that embrace life and protect marriage, two things the Republican Party once stood for also.

Under these circumstances, pro-family voters should reserve judgment about giving their financial support to either political party.

I'm good with this either way. If the FRC drags the GOP to the social right, then (despite the FRC's assertion), the party will simply just be that much further marginalized. If the GOP actually grows a pair and tells the FRC it won't toe its line, then the party will show a drift toward the center that I can only applaud.

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Huzzah.

A Miami-Dade circuit judge Tuesday declared Florida's 30-year-old ban on gay adoption unconstitutional, allowing a North Miami man to adopt two foster kids he has raised since 2004.

In a 53-page order that sets the stage for what could become a constitutional showdown, Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman permitted 47-year-old Frank Gill to adopt the 4- and 8-year-old boys he and his partner have raised since just before Christmas four years ago. A child abuse investigator had asked Gill to care for the boys temporarily; they were never able to return to their birth parents.

''This is the forum where we try to heal children, find permanent families for them so they can get another chance at what every child should know and feel from birth, and go on to lead productive lives,'' Lederman said in court before releasing the order. ``We pray for them to thrive, but that is a word we rarely hear in dependency court.''

''These children are thriving; it is uncontroverted,'' the judge added.

Wow -- doing it for the children. How radical!

In her ruling, Lederman said children taken into state care have a ''fundamental'' right to be raised in a permanent adoptive home if they cannot be reunited with birth parents. Children whose foster parents are gay, she said, can be deprived of that right under the current law.

''The challenged statute, in precluding otherwise qualified homosexuals from adopting available children, does not promote the interests of children and, in effect, causes harm to the children it is meant to protect,'' Lederman wrote.

It's interesting, in fact, that the ruling focuses more on the impact of the law on children than of the gay adoptive parents. Though they get their time, too, as the judge dismisses the claims from the state that "gay men and lesbians are disproportionately more likely to suffer from mental illness or a substance abuse problem than straight people, rendering them less fit to parent" -- which was the only basis they could come up with to shut out an entire class of individuals.

In a ruling that, at times, reads more like a social science research paper, Lederman dissected 30 years worth of psychological and sociological research, concluding that studies overwhelmingly have shown that gay people can parent every bit as effectively as straight people and do no harm to their children.

''Based on the evidence presented from experts from all over this country and abroad,'' Lederman wrote, ``it is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent. Sexual orientation no more leads to psychiatric disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship instability, a lower life expectancy or sexual disorders than race, gender, socioeconomic class or any other demographic characteristic.

''The most important factor in ensuring a well-adjusted child is the quality of parenting,'' Lederman wrote.

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The California Supreme Court has agreed to take up three lawsuits against the just-passed Proposition 8, which overturned a Supreme Court ruling finding that equal protection under the law required that the state allow gays to wed.

All three cases claim the measure abridges the civil rights of a vulnerable minority group. They argue that voters alone did not have the authority to enact such a significant constitutional change.

As is its custom when it takes up cases, the court elaborated little. However, the justices did say they want to address what effect, if any, a ruling upholding the amendment would have on the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that were sanctioned in California before election day.

Gay rights groups and local governments petitioning to overturn the ban were joined by the measure's sponsors and Attorney General Jerry Brown in urging the Supreme Court to consider whether Proposition 8 passes legal muster.

The Court declined to stay Prop 8 (and so allow gays to wed) while it was consiering the case. That's probably appropriate -- no use muddying the waters further if they uphold Prop 8, and if heard with deliberate speed, the impact if they strike down Prop 8 will be minimal. Unless, of course, you had a November wedding planned.

Of course, "speed" in this case means oral arguments in March.

The lawsuits argue that voters improperly abrogated the judiciary's authority by stripping same-sex couples of the right to wed after the high court earlier ruled it was discriminatory to prohibit gay men and lesbians from marrying.

Well, per se, it's not wrong for a ballot measure to overturn a court ruling. The argument here is that the change made is so substantial that it falls under a "revision" to the state Constitution, not an "amendment," which California treats differently.

"If given effect, Proposition 8 would work a dramatic, substantive change to our Constitution's 'underlying principles' of individual on a scale and scope never previously condoned by this court," lawyers for the same-sex couples stated in their petition.

The measure represents such a sweeping change that it constitutes a constitutional revision as opposed to an amendment, the documents say. The distinction would have required the ban's backers to obtain approval from two-thirds of both houses of the California Legislature before submitting it to voters.

Nor is this some unprecedented review.

Over the past century, the California Supreme Court has heard nine cases challenging legislative acts or ballot initiatives as improper revisions. The court eventually invalidated three of the measures, according to the gay rights group Lambda Legal.

So precedent would indicate that this is a very real possibility for being overturned -- but not something that the state Supreme Court handles trivially (charges of "activist judges" notwithstanding).

We'll check back in March, though I suspect the more rabid pro-8 folks will be vocally railing about this whole development for the next three and a half months, and no doubt making noises about recalls of justices, etc. (which, if you think about it, if the justices were, in fact, whimsically self-indulgent in their haphazard legal rulings, would be precisely the wrong PR tack to take right now).

The fact is, these are significant and profound constitutional questions, and the California Supreme Court is not only justified but obliged to fulfill their role as reviewers of constitutional claims. That's a big part of the judiciary's role, and it keeps legislators and the populace from passing laws that [insert something partisan you really don't want to see them pass laws about, whether it's about abortion or gun ownership or gay marriage]. That's their job, and regardless of political denomination, we should be glad they're there to do it.

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The American Family Association has a new DVD they're selling -- "They're Coming to Your Town," all about how a particular demographic minority slowly takes over a small Arkansas town, turning it into ... well, it's just horrible, horrible!  Eek! 

Of course, maybe you should look at this version first. Feel free to explain to me how it's fundamentally different.

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From NakedJen:

I mean, that says it all. If we're going to let the majority vote on who gets a valid marriage and who doesn't, which group is next? I mean, really, why not an interracial marriage ban (pesky US SCOTUS rulings aside)? How about interreligious marriages, or marriages between citizens and furriners? How about marriages between people who cannot have kids? How about doing away with civil marriages and require a church services? And none of those flaky Mormon or idolatrous Catholic services -- we want something good and American and Christian like the Baptists do.

Heck, why disallow marriages by class? We see plenty of bad marriages around us. Why not put all local marriages -- each and every individual one, prior to the wedding -- up to a vote of the city or county, or maybe just the block, or the families? Why not let those folks decide whether a given marriage is "promising" or "socially productive" or "in keeping with God's plan"?

Heck, let's be thorough about this -- no "grandparenting" existing marriages in. Prop. 8 supporters would certainly love to see all those gay marriages of the past several months declared null and void. So let's have a recall/referendum on every marriage in the state to see whether it lives up to the goals and description of Traditional Marriage. After all, we can trust the People to decide this, right? And since nothing is more important to our civilization than that Marriage Be Preserved, surely the People won't mind the inconvenience.

Of course, some "feelings" might be hurt, some (undeserving) "couples" torn asunder ... but we have to remember that the important thing is that we preserve some magical ideal of What God Means Religion To Be (2008 James Dobson Edition). Anything that doesn't line up, regardless of the reason, needs to be separated, wheat from chaff, rams from goats. Clearly the best method is through seeking approval of 51% of the voters for each and every case. It's the only way to be sure.

Who wants to go first?

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It was five years ago today when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that, y'know, that pesky separate but equal clause in the Constitution means that, barring a compelling reason (i.e., not counting "tradition" or "religion"), you really can't treat people unequally under the law, hence gay marriage.

And what has happened? 

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes ...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together ... mass hysteria!

-- Aykroyd & Ramis, Ghostbusters (1984)

Meh. Not so much. Eleven thousand gay marriages later ...

Massachusetts has yet to become, as former governor Mitt Romney predicted, the "Las Vegas of same-sex marriage." Gay marriage rates leveled off at about 1,500 a year - about 4 percent of all state marriages - in 2006 and 2007. The divorce rate in Massachusetts has remained the same - and the lowest in the country.

Of course, for some folks opposed to gays, the consequences have been even more dire than Biblical Wrath of God-style Destruction: normalcy.

What's really changed is more subtle than cosmic, more about the everyday lives of gay couples in Massachusetts than about a national transformation. Gay and lesbian couples here said they are attracting fewer startled looks when they rent cars, less consternation when they hold hands, fewer awkward questions when they visit spouses in hospital rooms.

"When we're out together as a couple, it really doesn't come up; we're never challenged anymore," said David Wilson, one of the plaintiffs in the 2003 SJC case and the current chairman of MassEquality, a gay-rights advocacy group. "It's now considered normal."

Maureen Brodoff and Ellen Wade, who were among the first gay and lesbian couples to wed here, have noticed the decrease in embarrassed double takes when they introduce themselves as wife and wife.

"The sky didn't fall," Brodoff said Wednesday, as she and Wade sat with their English setters Diana and Joey in the living room of their tidy Colonial in Newton Centre. "The newness of it has eased. It's just another marriage.

And worse than normalcy ... acceptance.

In February 2004, a survey of 400 voters found that 42 percent were in favor of same-sex marriage and 44 percent opposed it. In a similar survey completed this August, approval sprang to 59 percent and opposition sank to 37 percent, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the polls.

State Representative Brian P. Wallace, a Democrat from South Boston, has felt that mood in his district. Wallace, who in January 2007 voted in favor of a ban on same-sex marriage, was one of several lawmakers who changed their minds in June 2007, when the Legislature defeated a measure to put the question of marriage on the ballot.

"My constituency is changing," he explained. Although "there's still people who haven't spoken to me after the vote," most of his constituents, he said, no longer worry about same-sex marriage.

"Nobody is hurt by it," Wallace said. "There are other issues."

Nobody is hurt by it. There are other issues. 

Wow. How ... rational. And compassionate. And just.

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