Jim Burroway makes a very good point at Box Turtle Bulletin, as “the race to water down Rhode Island’s civil union bill” begins.
Marriage is the only non-negotiable relationship the law recognizes. Anything less leads to bargaining.
That’s one of the key ways you can tell the difference between a right and things like privileges, desires and the lesser forms of contract the law recognizes.
This seems to be a good point to make to heterosexuals. They have the luxury of not having to go to their elected officials (or fellow voters!) to wheel and deal over how the law will respect their marriage. For lesbians and gay men, I suppose, it’s better to be in a position where we have something to bargain over, rather than having no recognition at all. That’s progress, but it’s certainly not anything straight people should envy us for.
And, of course, I have to make the obvious point that Jim misses, about California. We don’t have civil unions here, we have domestic partnerships. Neither our marriages nor our DPs would get any recognition in Rhode Island at all. Perhaps they could add in a provision about “domestic partnerships” as well as calling out civil unions. But, of course, they’d then also have to put a provision on the list for any future state that chooses, in the legislative back-and-forth, to implement some other name. Yet that’s what they tried to do with the phrase, “substantially similar legal relationship,” and they had to edit that out because marriage is substantially similar, and the whole point is to sidestep that little issue.
This is what it looks like to aspire to equality — vying in the bazaar of the legislative process for whatever you can get. There are lots of things that are worth this tremendous, muddy, divisive fight. But heterosexuals should pause, every now and then, to appreciate how nice it is not to have to engage in this battle.
22 Comments for “Less Than Rights”
posted by Tom on
The unseemly mess in Rhode Island is solid evidence that the “incremental” approach does not work, to be blunt about it. I believe we should fight the battle over marriage, win or lose.
posted by Carl on
I wish that those who feel civil unions are not good enough would look to Wisconsin, where the governor and attorney general are working to ban hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples.
http://www.jsonline.mobi/news/statepolitics/121956273.html
posted by Tom on
Carl, I live in Wisconsin, Michael and I are registered as domestic partners, and I’ve been tracking the Appling lawsuit since it was initially filed as an “original jurisdiction” case almost two years ago. We will prevail in the case, believe me.
The Republican push in Wisconsin to rid the state of an extremely limited domestic partner registry is nothing new; the Republicans voted 100% against it when it was passed in 2009, and each and every Republican elected to state office in 2010 is on record as favoring repeal of the law.
But what has that got to do with the value of civil unions?
posted by Carl on
I compare them because I think a lot of the time people don’t realize that in “all or nothing,” you often get nothing. And it can get to the point where you may not even be able to see your dying partner, or, you have to rely on a power of attorney that might not be respected.
posted by Tom on
That is certainly true, Carl, but we will soon be in at a point where about a third of Americans live in states that permit or recognize marriage.
Most of the rest will have to wait for a Loving-equivalent Supreme Court decision, given the difficulties of undoing constitutional amendments and the ability of a determined minority to undermine the process.
It is unclear when a decision will come. My guess is that Perry will be decided on standing, and that a substantive decision won’t come down until 2020 or so.
It might be, given that circumstance, that it makes sense for gays and lesbians in the states with anti-marriage amendments (but without nuclear-option versions banning “substantially similar” legal relationships) to seek what is permitted under state constitutions rather than wait.
But otherwise, my view is that we push for marriage. Public opinion is changing fast — we are making that happen, not the politicians — and in most states where marriage is possible constitutional, seeking marriage equality rather than separate and unequal civil unions, is likely to delay things no more than a year or two. Seeking civil unions works the other way around, in my view, adding to the delay.
While it is true that civil unions provide some benefits, they are not recognized nationally and they do not cross state lines. Neither situation is likely to change.
In any event, you have noticed, certainly, that it doesn’t make any difference what we push for, in the sense that no matter what we push for, social conservatives and the Republican Party will fight us to the last ditch.
With respect to Wisconsin, I remind you that the only reason that we enacted the domestic partnership law is that Wisconsin has a nuclear-option version of the anti-marriage amendment, so we pushed for what was constitutionally permitted.
At the time we fought over the anti-marriage amendment, the Republican leadership assured Wisconsinites that nothing in the amendment would prevent the state from enacting legislation providing limited benefits like hospital visitation and burial rights, so long as the package didn’t add up to equivalency.
Now, of course, they are singing a different tune …
posted by Houndentenor on
“Republicans voted 100% against it when it was passed in 2009, and each and every Republican elected to state office in 2010 is on record as favoring repeal of the law.”
Any Republican apologists care to comment on that?
posted by Jorge on
I agree with Carl’s point.
The whole point about the tangle of different possible legal statuses being recognized/not recognized if you visit from another state is notable. I’d think of all the precautions I’d need to take and maybe decide against going there at all. I think that’s it.
posted by Houndentenor on
The same people who are against marriage are also against civil unions. It’s the same fight either way with just a few moderates wanting to vote for gay marriage without calling it marriage.
If social conservatives want to offer a compromise on gay marriage, let THEM propose the compromise and promise the votes to get it passed. In Utah or Alabama, civil unions would be a huge victory. There’s no reason to settle for separate but equal in Rhode Island.
posted by Amicus on
One can be morally opposed to “civil union” and this is a reason to oppose them. They represent a continuation of a way to morally segregate gay people into a “class” that is distinct, in morally inconsistent ways. And despite their prima facie appeal as an apt compromise, they are objectionable.
Only if you sweep the infertile, the “re-married”, the adulterous, the married-late-in-life-with-no-possibility-or-intension-for-procreation all into a legal category called “civil union” could one have the law make any intuitive moral sense.
To single out gays for a new contract is indecent and radical.
Morally, people already understand all these circumstances (of behavior and not) in one ‘moral category’ called civil “marriage”. They make the appropriate mental adjustments so that individuals; circumstances do not “change” the concept.
The same can be true of gay marriages, understood even from a
“conservative” ethical framework: people can and do understand that gays do not procreate in the same way as nongays, but that just inflects but doesn’t change their concept of marriage wholesale.
To take the step to insistent on a exclusion for gays is cruel, it’s untoward devotion to an unnecessary formality (as Dale Carpenter was just pointing out). There are plenty of things (including infertility) which we know probably demand a separate category, if we are being rigorous, yet we choose to include them in one category, we choose a wink-and-nod of the good kind, because to do so is to show mercy, to appropriately orient ourselves to the contingencies of our world, of existence. It’s not an endorsement of “pluralism”, from this perspective. Rather, it is a kind of humility.
posted by Amicus on
apart from the run-on sentence, “indivduals;” s/b individuals’
posted by Doug on
Amicus, what is the moral argument against civil unions?
posted by Amicus on
Doug,
I’m writing the above from a marriage support perspective. Does it help if I re-write the first line as follows:
“One can be morally opposed to “civil union” and this is a reason to oppose them as an alternative to marriage.”
posted by Doug on
Sorry to be dense but you say “One can be morally opposed to ‘civil union’. . . and I would just like to know on what moral grounds one can argue that. If it’s religious, it’s not unanimous since many religions don’t oppose civil unions and besides this country is supposed to be governed without regard to any particular religion. So what are the moral grounds to oppose civil unions.
posted by Jorge on
I think he’s making the argument that civil unions are morally reprehensible on civil rights grounds, that they create an even stronger legalized segregation that is cruel and belittling to gays, and which is without cause.
posted by Amicus on
Doug,
I hesitate to amplify what I’ve written, because it might just add confusion.
I’ve outline two approaches, in the development of my own thought about this (on the heels of the Box Turtle series). The second is one that has been around a long time (at least, familiar to me), but not so often in the public eye/discourse.
1. One, you can believe that gay marriage is morally justified in a way that makes “civil union” make no logical sense.
2. Alternatively, you can outline say 2-3 “moral foundations” for marriage and admit that gays lack one. Similar to infertile couples, you are then left with the question about how to treat those people in society. Do you segregate them? In what I call the “argument from mercy”, one does not. One is morally opposed to doing that, for a list of reasons. [This also points to one set of arguments about why the ‘rational basis’ test is wrong for these types of moral questions almost invariably, because the standard, even when low, about how one treats people is simply not the same as saying the speed limit for trucks is less than for cars, for instance.]
posted by Amicus on
Let me add at least one more grouping:
3. One can believe that gay marriage is wrong, and through a series of companionate reasonings, choose to support civil gay marriage for gays.
Such reasonings could be many and broad. They might include recognition that “reasonable people” could disagree (and require peaceable consensus only on how best to propagate a new ethic). Or, they might include a recognition that one’s certainty on the issue is not strong enough to warrant the kind of discrimination required.
posted by Tom on
3. One can believe that gay marriage is wrong, and through a series of companionate reasonings, choose to support civil gay marriage for gays.
This is exactly what the Catholic Church and many other conservative Christians have done with respect to remarriage after divorce.
Although remarriage after divorce is believed to be adultery by many (most?) Christians, the Catholic Church is joined by the vast majority of other Christians in accepting the fact that our society is better off if divorce couples living together and (often) raising children are permitted to remarry at civil law, regardless of the bans and/or restrictions placed upon remarriage after divorce for religious purposes.
Whether that kind of reasoning is “compassionate” or “common-sense”, or some combination of the two, I leave to others to decide. But it seems to me to be a similar case — a form of marriage that is offensive to conservative Christians but permitted at civil law for non-religious reasons.
posted by Houndentenor on
That is completely absurd. The Catholic Church is free to marry or not marry anyone it chooses. The same goes for other religions. That has nothing to do with the state laws regarding marriage. Divorce is legal. The Catholic Church’s stance on divorce only affects Catholics (and even then it seems plenty of them ignore it) but has no affect on whether or not the public at large is allowed to legally divorce and remarry.
posted by Tom on
That is completely absurd.
Stop and think, Houndentenor, before you go off.
The contrast between religious law, on the one hand, and civil law, on the other, with respect to divorce and remarriage is precisely parallel to the contrast between religious law, on the one hand, and civil law, on the other, with respect to same-sex marriage, as your next sentences demonstrate:
The Catholic Church is free to marry or not marry anyone it chooses. The same goes for other religions.
That is true for same-sex marriages, as well as remarriage after divorce. Just as the Catholic Church is free to refuse to marry Catholics who have been divorced, the Catholic Church is free to refuse to marry same-sex couples. Just as Reform Judaism is free to marry couples after divorce in accordance with religious law, Reform Judaism is free to marry same-sex couples in accordance with religious law, and does.
That has nothing to do with the state laws regarding marriage.
Exactly. Religious rules have nothing at all to do with civil marriage.
Divorce is legal.
True, and so is same-sex marriage, in five states so far, anyway. But civil law cannot compel the Catholic Church to recognize a divorce (or civil remarriage) for religious purposes, and in most cases it does not. Similarly, civil law cannot compel the Catholic Church to recognize same-sex marriages for religious purposes, and it does not.
The Catholic Church’s stance on divorce only affects Catholics (and even then it seems plenty of them ignore it) but has no affect on whether or not the public at large is allowed to legally divorce and remarry.
Yes, and the same is true for the Catholic Church’s stance on same-sex marriage.
But that is not the question, and that is why you need to stop and think a bit.
The question is why the Catholic Church (and other conservative Christians who feel similarly about same-sex marriage) feel compelled to fight to the last ditch to prevent same-sex civil marriage when the Catholic Church (and other conservative Christians who believe similarly about remarriage after divorce) fell no need to fight civil law remarriage after divorce at all?
It doesn’t seem to me that comparing the two situations is absurd at all. It seems to me, instead, that religious groups like the Catholic Church (and other conservative Christians who similarly oppose same-sex marriage) should ponder the comparison. Civil laws allowing people to remarry after divorce have had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the ability of these religious groups to recognize remarriage after divorce for religious purposes.
So why, then are the Catholic Church and other conservative Christians claiming that civil laws allowing same-sex marriages will, somehow, require them to recognize same-sex marriages for religious purposes? That is what seems to me to be absurd.
I can see only two alternative explanations: Either they are (1) liars, or (2) not thinking any more clearly than you seem to be.
posted by Amicus on
remarriage is interesting not just through the prism of prohibitions on divorce, but through considerations about children.
Statistically, re-marriage with children puts the kids at heightened risk. Yet, this is ignored when it is supposed that gays are bad for kids that they might raise.
If there is no divorce, yet there is re-marriage, many of those marriages, especially if late in life, involve no expectation of children. Indeed, if one is old enough, it is medically ill-advised, for both men and women to conceive. Yet, the state knowingly passes out a marriage license.
posted by Houndentenor on
@Tom
Perhaps the reason the RCC wants to focus on gay marriage and abortion so much is to distract from widespread criminal activity (molestation, statutory rape and obstruction of justice) that goes all the way to the top of their hierarchy. The idea that any bishop can even pretend to have any moral authority in our society is laughable. As for the other groups, they use fearmongering to make people believe that if gay marriage were legal, they would be forced to marry same-sex couples. It’s a lie. I guess the eighth commandment is optional now?
Gay marriage is the line in the sand drawn some time ago by the religious right. If they lose that fight, they feel they have lost all of them. They are probably right.
posted by Tom on
I guess the eighth commandment is optional now?
It has certainly lost currency among anti-gay conservative Christians, to be sure, for good reason. If the injunction to speak the truth were taken seriously by these folks, it would be the be the end of the anti-gay crusade. The whole thing is built on a foundation of lies.