IGF CultureWatch

In 1968, Spence Silver, a 3M research scientist, accidentally created an adhesive with properties that were then novel. It was spherical; it had the thickness of a paper fiber; it did not dissolve; it did not melt; each individual sphere was very sticky. But when many spheres were brought together onto a tape backing, they didn't adhere very well.

For five years, Silver pitched his discovery to folks at 3M, but no one thought much of his creation. Finally, in 1973, an application was found: movable bulletin boards. But it was hardly an earth-shattering application.

Enter Art Fry, a new-product development researcher at 3M. He had learned about Silver's adhesive, and he thought to himself: If I could put some of that adhesive on the back of a piece of paper, I could create a more reliable bookmark for my church hymnal instead of the scraps of paper that keep falling out. He brought his idea to 3M. Some initially tried to kill the project; why compete with something that already exists and works so well already? But Fry and others persisted. They eventually went to Richmond, Virginia, to see if they could sell this notion of scrap paper with an adhesive edge. People were interested, and in 1980-a dozen years after Silver's discovery-3M launched the Post-it Note.

With all the hue and cry about civil union and its alleged inferiority, I ask myself: Do the people who accidentally created this new adhesive have any idea how powerful their invention is? I don't think they do.

So let me offer an application for their creation. Since October of 2001, I've been proposing a different way to move forward in our struggle toward marriage equality. The dominant voices from our community have demanded marriage for gays, and marriage has been the rallying cry ever since we came so close in Hawaii. But some of us want to see something that is at once more radical and more conservative: civil union for all.

It's clearly more radical, because no nation on earth has ever abandoned civil marriage and adopted an alternative. In a debate with an advocate of same-sex marriage, my proposal of civil union for all was dismissed as being so much wishful thinking. We will always have civil marriage, I was told. Really? This same advocate cautioned against filing marriage lawsuits too soon, for fear of suits that may be unwinnable in the courts of law and public opinion. All the while, she cited Hawaii- the suit most gay legal thinkers thought was premature-as the beginning of the current push for gay marriage.

Fifteen years ago, few of us fully envisioned the possibility of gay marriage. Dismissing civil union for all out of hand similarly represents a failure of imagination on the part of leaders in the gay community and elsewhere. After all, civil marriage cannot trace its lineage to the beginnings of ancient civilization. So who's to say that a nation might not one day adopt civil union for all?

And what better nation to do this than the United States? American exceptionalism is part of our birthright. If any nation is poised to reinvent legal relationships on a large scale, it is our great and innovative land. Liberty, justice, and civil union for all.

The other complaint I hear from the champions for same-sex marriage is: We didn't get civil union by asking for civil union. I was up here in Vermont when we got civil union, and to be honest, none of us were all that happy that we didn't get marriage. But at the same time, few of us conceived anything like civil union. It's awfully hard to ask for something that does not yet exist. Who would know to ask for a Post-it Note that hadn't yet been invented? Now that we have civil union for gay couples, it's not so unimaginable to ask for civil union for all couples, is it?

And this is what makes my proposal conservative. By saying that all couples, gay and straight, get a civil union, we solve a number of issues simultaneously. Take polygamy, for example. The defenders of traditional marriage wail that polygamy is right around the corner if society allows same-sex marriage. We all know, though, that marriage has long been associated with polygamy, and granting or denying same-sex marriage won't affect that history one whit. Civil union, in contrast, has no history. So let's define it: two people who are unrelated by blood and above a certain age are eligible for governmental recognition of their relationship and the benefits and obligations that come from that recognition. Poof! No polygamy.

And talk about the separation of church and state! Has anyone you know pontificated about the sanctity of civil union, about the need to protect traditional civil union? Of course not.

The champions of same-sex marriage think they can finesse the church-state issue by talking about civil marriage and how no religious body would be forced to conduct a gay wedding. These gay leaders have no idea how integral marriage is to the theology of many religious persons in the United States and elsewhere.

Time for some self-disclosure. I was formerly the chaplain of a conservative Christian college. I know the religious right fairly well. For many Christians, it's not just the sanctity of marriage colliding with strictures against homosexuality. Marriage is a mirror that reflects the relationship that Christ has with the Church. And if this metaphorical marriage consecrates two men or two women, who gets impregnated with the Spirit of God? The religious objection is far deeper than simply maintaining the status quo. It subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) reaffirms the distinction between the sexes and the traditional subservience of one gender to the other.

Who can forget how gender-bound our understanding of marriage is? Think of the sentences that are forever wed to the wedding ceremony. "I now pronounce you man and wife" (i.e., master and property). "You may kiss the bride" (more preferential treatment for the groom). For the life of me, I do not comprehend why gay people, of all people, want to buy into this history. Call one another "husband" and "wife" if you choose, but notice how straight couples are beginning to abandon this language in favor of something more egalitarian. There are no gendered expectations in civil union; it skirts the sex-specific baggage of religious marriage. In my book, that's an improvement.

Time for some more self-disclosure. I'm black. And am I the only one to notice that black clergy stayed pretty much out of this struggle until gays won the legal right to use the M-word? In Massachusetts, the Black Ministerial Alliance did not make their voice heard until after the advisory ruling that said that civil union would not do. That was when they stood in opposition, and not a moment before. Those of us who are black and gay often feel that we have to choose which community we will call home. As the battle for the M-word escalates and as more black clergy speak out against same-sex marriage, I know of one black gay man who is feeling torn between two communities he loves and treasures.

Call me deluded, but I happen to believe that most of the black clergy who are rallying against same-sex marriage would give civil union a pass. We don't know if they would, though, because we haven't asked them. Instead, we cluck our tongues at these unsympathetic black leaders: don't they recognize prejudice when they see it? But maybe we're so blinded by our dogged pursuit of the M-word that we don't see there are other ways of securing equality for all.

So here's my pitch. Civil union won't work if it's only for gays and straights can get married. That's called segregation, and segregation is illegal in America. And I certainly am not opposed to marriage for all. I just happen to prefer civil union for all.

A straight woman asked me: what about straight people who want to say they're married? I asked her: who's stopping them? Gay couples have been using the M-word for quite some time now; we've not waited for the government to give us permission. No one is thrown in jail for saying they're married or civilly united or whatever they choose. Indeed, the champions of same-sex marriage infantilize gay couples by making us feel we are incomplete until Big Brother calls us married. Hogwash. And to those who accuse me of harboring internalized homophobia, I say: look in the mirror, sweetheart. I don't need the M-word; why do you need it?

What I do need that I don't have now are the 1,138 benefits that the federal government gives to straight married couples. (You do realize that all those fabulous couples who got married in Massachusetts since May 17, 2004, don't have these benefits, don't you?) I need it to be portable, so that it is recognized from state to state. And the idea that only marriage will give us this is laughable. Besides, there's portability and there's portability. Will the married gay couple from Boston be recognized as married in Baghdad?

Last bit of self-disclosure. I am a practicing Episcopalian. And while I live in Vermont, I've followed closely the story of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of the neighboring diocese of New Hampshire. Robinson was once asked for his take on gay marriage. "If gay and lesbian people are full citizens of the country and state in which they live, they should be accorded the same rights as other couples. I don't think it matters whether you call it marriage or civil union as long as the responsibilities and the benefits are the same." Now, what would a man who had a heterosexual marriage, fathered two children, divorced, joined his life to that of another gay man well over a decade ago, conducted many, many marriages as an Episcopal priest, signed many, many marriage licenses as a deputy of the state, counseled couples prior to marriage, in marriage, and before divorce, and now oversees the Episcopal church in New Hampshire: I mean, what would he know about marriage?

All the same, Robinson may concede more than I want to concede. I would not be content with civil union for gays and civil marriage for straights. It's all one or the other for me. So like Monty Hall (remember him?), I say: Let's make a deal. Make it civil union for all, and we'll drop our insistence for marriage. And if the other side won't settle for civil union, then I guess I'll have to settle for marriage.

But I really would prefer civil union for all. After all, we gay people created it. It's a cultural makeover not even Queer Eye for the Straight Guy could engineer. It's simple and elegant at the same time. It takes religion out of the picture. It's new and improved. So let's make it ubiquitous as well.

Like that little piece of scrap paper with the weird adhesive on its edge. Who would have thought in 1980 that the Post-it Note would become so common? I didn't. And who imagines today that civil union for all could become universal? I do.

What a non-issue civil unions are turning out to be.

I fully expected that the GOP candidates would leverage New Hampshire's newly enacted civil union law to remind voters that only they will protect the traditional family. I'm sure there were comments made at rallies and in restaurants that I didn't hear and that reporters chose to ignore. But short of Mike Huckabee's statement in the ABC/WMUR/Facebook debate that he and Obama likely held different positions on same-sex marriage, fulminations against lesbian and gay couples simply failed to materialize.

In point of fact, the positions of Huckabee and Obama are much closer than one may realize - no viable candidate for the White House supports same-sex marriage - but consider what the silence in New Hampshire portends. Just a little more than a week before the Jan. 8 primaries, the local papers were abuzz with news of the law taking effect. The steps of the capitol became the Dixville Notch for gay couples as three dozen of them said their "I do's" before family, friends and the media (and at least one cranky protester from Maine) at midnight on New Year's Day. Projections from those in the know suggest that over 3,500 couples will take advantage of the new law in the first year alone. That ain't chump change.

Meanwhile, the local GOP opposition isn't even trying to overturn the law. At present, it hopes to repeal the provision that says New Hampshire will recognize out-of-state civil unions. News flash: Not gonna happen. Gay Vermonters who work in the Granite State are tired of being legal strangers every time we head east across the Connecticut River, and our allies in New Hampshire will rally for us. Besides, four states now have civil unions: Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire. Only one has same-sex marriage (Massachusetts.). The trend line says that more and more states will enact civil union laws, and just as in New Hampshire, more and more people will have no objection when that day comes.

Now fast-forward to the spring of 2009. Imagine the next president proclaiming that the federal benefits that attend civil marriage (well over 1,100) would be extended by executive order to all federal employees whose relationships have been registered in one of the 50 states. And imagine that president calling upon Congress to pass legislation to extend those benefits to all couples so registered.

I'm deliberately avoiding the M-word here because for years now I've argued that we as a nation need to divorce the legal benefits of marriage from the religious connotations of the word. I've argued that civil unions need to be available to all. And the collective shrug seen in New Hampshire suggests that a move in that direction is possible, both on a statewide and on a federal level.

After all, most of us intuitively grasp the distinction between a license filed away in a musty vault somewhere and the moment enacted before witnesses where two people wed their lives to each other. The latter, not the former, constitutes marriage. The rest is paperwork.

I do not discount the symbolic important the M-word has for many in our world today, which is why I'm happy to report that people routinely refer to my partner and I (neither one of us likes the word "husband") as married. The state cannot withhold the word or the ceremonial rites of marriage.

The legal rights of marriage, in contrast, are held exclusively by the state. Let's keep prying those rights free from the word itself. One of the fastest ways we can do that is to elect a president who can help make this distinction clearer, who respects all couples for their intrinsic worth and sees their genuine need for the protection of their relationships that only the law can afford. And when the GOP nominee starts squawking about civil unions on the state and federal level, say: You had your chance to speak up in New Hampshire. It's time for you now and forever to hold your peace.

First published, in a slightly different form, October 25, 2005, in the Valley News (Vermont/New Hampshire).

Supporters and opponents of gay marriage have a new challenge on their hands. It's called Connecticut.

On Oct. 1, Connecticut became the third state in the nation (along with Vermont and Massachusetts) to offer gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights and responsibilities that states offer straight couples.

Connecticut is the first state to do so without a court order.

And the whole affair has drawn a big yawn.

On that historical Saturday, Connecticut state Rep. Michael Lawlor said, "(T)he big news...is UConn beat Army, not civil unions. The people of Connecticut are comfortable with this."

And that's a problem for same-sex marriage opponents and advocates alike.

For opponents, many realize that it is almost impossible to get political traction by resisting legal protections for gay couples. In Massachusetts, the only state where such protections go by the name "marriage," a majority of residents have made peace with the idea of gay men and lesbians getting hitched. There may yet be a statewide referendum on same-sex marriage, but that vote won't come until 2008, and most observers feel that it will be difficult to persuade voters to take marriage away from the more than 6,000 gay and lesbian couples who, as of this writing, have tied the knot since May 2004.

Meanwhile, in California-a state where over 20,000 gay couples in domestic partnerships have near-parity on a state level with straight couples-opponents of same-sex marriage are thanking Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar for vetoing a bill that would have legalized gay marriage. But on the same day of the veto, the governor signed four bills that extend the protections given to gay Californians, and he made clear that he would not support petition drives in his state to roll back the rights and responsibilities California law currently gives gay couples.

So Connecticut is more bad news for same-sex marriage opponents. The news is so bad, in fact, that the organizations that have railed against same-sex marriage in the past-Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council-have said next to nothing about Connecticut. The silence has been deafening.

Equally silent are the supporters of same-sex marriage. Neither of the two major gay advocacy organizations-the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force-issued a press release celebrating Connecticut's achievement. Because civil unions are not marriage in name, these organizations have kept mum on Connecticut.

But holdouts for the M-word have long overplayed their hand. Marriage is needed, they tell us, because: federal benefits are attached to marriage; states recognize other states' marriages; marriage has social esteem that civil unions do not have.

April 15 showed us all that just because Massachusetts calls a couple married, the IRS doesn't have to. The federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, so gay leaders in Massachusetts encouraged couples to check the single box on their federal returns but to write in the margin "Married and proud in MA." So much for federal benefits.

Meanwhile, Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general, wrote that "civil unions performed in other states are entitled to full faith and credit in Connecticut (but) out-of-state same-sex marriages have no legal force and effect here." A Vermont couple with a civil union suddenly has better legal footing in Connecticut than does a Massachusetts gay couple. So much for portability.

All that's left, then, is the social esteem argument, which, I admit, I've never understood. Recently I asked my neighbor, a justice of the peace, to recount for us the memorable weddings she has performed. Without missing a beat, she spoke of our ceremony. I scratch my head to imagine what, if anything, we would gain if the town clerk swapped our civil union license for a marriage license. Our family and friends see us as married, as do we.

Which makes Connecticut one more piece of bad news for same-sex marriage supporters. If gay Connecticut couples end up having moving ceremonies in churches and gardens, if they announce their unions in newspapers, if their friends and families see them as married, how will supporters of same-sex marriage win them over?

Perhaps Connecticut isn't even the biggest challenge. Great Britain is inaugurating civil partnerships, a legal category that, according to a Reuters story, gives gay couples "the same property and inheritance rights as married heterosexual couples and entitles them to the same pension, immigration and tax benefits." With as many as 4,500 couples estimated to sign up in the first year alone, opponents and supporters of gay marriage there and here have their work cut out for them: for opponents, how to turn back the tide that is bringing legal rights to gay couples; and supporters, how to convince the world that the only way to confer these rights is through marriage.

First published on November 4, 2004, in the The Dartmouth.

Our ongoing culture war over marriage for gays and lesbians bears striking resemblances to America's culture war over interracial marriage (also known as miscegenation, or the mixing of races). Like all analogies, there are differences as well as similarities, but perhaps we have not pressed the analogy far enough. The entire history of miscegenation has valuable lessons to teach us today.

Two items from that earlier struggle clearly mirror our current situation. First, the arguments against miscegenation sound eerily like the arguments against same-sex marriage, with appeals to the Bible, nature, tradition, and the welfare of children. Second, the 2003 Goodridge decision that extended marriage to gay couples in Massachusetts (a 4-3 decision) is reminiscent of the 1948 case of Perez v. Sharp (another 4-3 decision), in which California's highest court struck down that state's anti-miscegenation law some 20 years before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state and federal anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia (1967).

But should we conclude that we are in a post-Perez, pre-Loving phase in the battle for marriage benefits for gay couples? No one seriously believes that the U.S. Supreme Court will impose gay marriage upon our nation anytime soon. Rather, recent events suggest that we are in a pre-Perez, post-Civil War phase of same-sex marriage, with many more twists and turns before us.

Consider first the politics of miscegenation. Interracial marriage is as old as humanity, and various cultures embraced miscegenation to varying degrees. The American colonies, for example, alternately allowed and discouraged the practice. It wasn't until 1863, though, that the issue heated up and boiled over into a presidential campaign.

The word "miscegenation" was coined that year when two Democrat writers anonymously published a pamphlet that extolled the virtues of interracial marriage. It was a trap, and some unwitting Republicans fell into it. The Democrats labeled the Republicans as being too pro-black for the good of the country. Abraham Lincoln had his hands full with a major war; his opponents tried to use miscegenation as a wedge issue. Today, Lincoln's party uses gay marriage as a wedge issue; the Republican National Committee even distributed a pamphlet in Arkansas and West Virginia that said the Democrats would ban Bibles and usher in gay marriage. Meanwhile, the Democrats work overtime to show themselves as not being too gay-friendly.

Then take the case of Burns v. State. In 1872, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the state's anti-miscegenation law was unconstitutional. There was such a backlash from white supremacists that, five years later in Green v. State, the court reversed itself and reinstated the law. Some states (like Massachusetts) repealed their anti-miscegenation laws in the 19th century, but others (such as Virginia) toughened their statutes. Fast forward to this year, when 13 states have amended their constitutions to forbid same-sex marriage and at least eight of these amendments also outlaw civil unions.

Consider also the goings-on at the federal level. In 1911, Rep. Seaborn Roddenberry (D-GA) introduced a constitutional amendment that would have outlawed miscegenation throughout the republic. His proposal was advanced at a time when state anti-miscegenation laws reached a peak in number and severity and when Jack Johnson, the 1910 black heavyweight champion, cavorted with white women. We see a similar attempt at the federal level to ban gay marriage at a time when state bans pass with supermajorities and gay couples are visible throughout society.

One other comparison needs to be drawn. Most Americans a century ago were not white supremacists. Many believed that blacks deserved some legal protections, and most knew that miscegenation was unlikely to affect them personally. All the same, these white Americans were ambivalent toward black Americans. They allowed the rhetoric and actions of white supremacists to prevail. They chose to ignore the hurtful - and sometimes fatal - consequences of their complicity. And all Americans continue to pay the price for that quiet capitulation to white supremacy.

Today, straight supremacists are trying to impose their vision of America upon those who are unsure about gay people. In this last election, 64 percent of voters said in exit polls that they support the legal recognition of gay couples. And yet many of these same people, goaded by straight supremacists, voted for laws that make legal recognition for gay couples all but impossible. Their hearts are in the right place, but when push comes to shove, they choose the preservation of privilege over the expansion of justice.

Eventually gay couples will achieve full legal equality throughout America, just as interracial couples achieved equality. How soon that day arrives depends on how loudly the advocates for same-sex marriage denounce straight supremacists and how long it takes the majority of Americans to abandon its double-mindedness toward gays. Even so, the sad history of miscegenation suggests that if we are in a pre-Perez phase, as I believe we are, full gay marriage equality may be years - even decades - away.

First published on June 16, 2004, in the Rutland Herald.

You know the gay couple down the street from you? You envy their garden; you envy their clothes. You saw the inside of their home, and you envy their furniture. Now, with the release of the Vermont 2002 Vital Statistics, you can envy their relationship.

Forget the phony figures cooked up by organizations like the Family Research Council that warn about the alleged instability of gay relationships. Vermont has been the only place in America where we have amassed hard, cold facts about gay couples, the only place where, for the last four years, gay relationships have been recognized by the state as equal to straight relationships. And the data is in: Gay couples are doing much better than straight couples are.

A year ago in The Valley News, I looked at Vermont's vital statistics on marriage and civil union from 1998 to 2001 (see "Separate State-Sanctioned Unions from Religious Marriage").Civil union was still in its infancy, and it was too soon to draw comparisons between divorce and dissolution rates. But those earlier numbers suggested that gay couples were not undermining marriage in Vermont, as straight couples continued to marry in steady numbers.

Before turning to the 2002 numbers, some long-term perspective on marriage in Vermont is warranted. The year 1988 was a high water mark. It was the first year marriages numbered over 6,000; that year, the marriage rate of 11.1 persons per 1,000 population was also the highest Vermont had reached since 1940. Since then, the number of marriages has hovered around 6,000, while the rate per 1,000 has steadily dropped.

The 2002 numbers fit well within this larger picture. The number of marriages increased slightly from those in 2001 (6,011 vs. 5,983), while the rate was 9.8 per 1,000, the same as it was in 2001 (which is still higher than the U.S. rate of 7.8 in 2002 and 8.4 in 2001). In 2002, the number of civil unions dropped, from 1,875 to 1,707. Out-of-state couples make up almost 90 percent of all civil unions, and the overwhelming majority of these couples are lesbians. These numbers show that civil union hasn't stopped straight couples from marrying in Vermont.

It also hasn't stopped them from divorcing, either. In 2002, 3,633 Vermont couples got married; that same year, 2,653 got divorced. Imagine seven Vermont couples in a room; five of them will get divorced. And some of these folks know this, because they've been divorced already; just under half of the marriages in 2002 were firsts for both bride and groom.

Contrast this with gay couples: 161 Vermont couples entered into a civil union in 2002; that same year, nine dissolved their civil unions. Eighteen couples are in a room; for 14 of them, this is their first legalized commitment; only one of them will divorce.

Of course, civil unions only go back to 2000, so the comparison above cannot account for all of the variables. For example, we don't know how long two people have been together prior to the legalization of their relationship. The fact that the median for marriage in Vermont is 30-34 years and the median for civil union is 35-39 years suggests that some gay couples may have already clocked more years together as partners than their straight counterparts have.

But there are other statistics that allow us to get closer to comparing apples with apples. In 2002, 353 straight Vermont couples got divorced after having been married for two years or less. Take this number, and straight Vermont couples are nearly twice as likely to dissolve their unions as are gay couples that have been legally united the same length of time.

So perhaps the defenders of traditional marriage have a point. Gay couples undermine marriage by succeeding in civil union at levels straight married couples can only dream of, succeeding by and large without the help of our churches, chapels, synagogues and mosques.

Which brings me to one last statistic. In 2001, 58.9 percent of straight marriages were civil ceremonies, solemnized without the benefit of organized religion. In 2002, that figure edged up to 60.9 percent. And I'm fairly confident that the rate of civil ceremonies for civil unions is even higher than the rate for marriages.

The debate over same-sex marriage is often a proxy debate over how to separate civil marriage from holy matrimony. As it happens, these two entities have been drifting apart on their own, with no help from gay Americans. But the debate has also entertained two other claims:

1. Same-sex marriage undermines marriage, and
2. Gay men and lesbians are ill-suited for marriage

In a few years, we'll have more statistics from our neighbor to the south, as marriage for gay couples is legal in Massachusetts. But the Vermont vital statistics not only refute the charge that gays will undermine marriage. They suggest that, if one wants to slow the tide of divorce, the state should allow gay couples to marry. However one approaches the statistics, the same basic point emerges: Gay Vermont couples are treating civil union much more seriously than straight Vermont couples are treating marriage.

First published on May 4, 2004, in the Rutland Herald.

The challenge for supporters of same-sex marriage is much greater than obtaining access to civil marriage for gay Americans. Supporters must help all Americans distinguish between marriage and a marriage ceremony. And the way to do this is to ensure that the civil certification of marriage looks radically different than the ceremonial celebration of marriage.

I recall a former ministerial colleague's pithy words about the role a pastor plays in the life of a church member. The minister is there when a person is hatched, matched and dispatched. People turn to religion, he was telling me, in order to mark births, marriages and deaths. The state, as it happens, is also present at each of those moments. But what the state does is quite different from what the church does.

Consider what happens when a person is hatched. There was a time when churches provided the sole record of a child's birth. In places where those records are incomplete or lost, we are left to conjecture when people from past centuries were born. If people didn't go to church at all, their births could go unrecorded. The state took over this bookkeeping function from the church in order to keep track of people (likely for tax purposes) and has never looked back.

But the church has not ceased to celebrate births just because the state issues birth certificates. Rather, there is the infant dedication or baptism (or, in the case of Jewish male infants, the bris), where the newborn is brought into the faith community. There is no competition between church and state, because we accept the bookkeeping function of the state as independent from the ceremonial life of the faithful.

The same distinction happens when a person is dispatched. The coroner expedites the paperwork for a death certificate, and the funeral director secures a burial license. Once again, these are bookkeeping tasks that the state has assumed from the church, whose bookkeeping was spotty. But the state's role does not supersede the work of the fait+hful. There is no state requirement that a family sit shiva for the departed; death certificates do not require funeral or memorial services in order to make them valid. The faith community marks death with its own distinct set of rituals. And most of us would revolt if the state dictated what our rituals should look like.

Here is where marriage runs afoul of both church and state. In Vermont, the law requires that a marriage be solemnized in order to validate a marriage. While there is no specification of what constitutes an acceptable solemnization, the language is clear: The state requires a marriage ceremony in order for a marriage to have legal force.

There are many good reasons to have a marriage ceremony. It allows the couple to share their joy and love with us. It allows us to show our support for the couple. It even provides an opportunity, if we take our responsibility seriously, to express our concerns and tell the couple we think they're making a terrible mistake ("speak now or forever hold your peace"). It turns a marriage into a communal event.

This would all be well and good if the law held the community accountable for a marriage. But the law does not. When a marriage ends, the community usually does not gather before the magistrate (unless it's a celebrity divorce). This is because marriage gives two individuals rights and responsibilities and obligations.

This would also be well and good if the marriage ceremony had no religious connotations. But with all the talk about the sanctity of marriage and its status as a sacred institution, it is obvious that a great number of Americans fail to distinguish between the marriage ceremony and marriage.

Thus, there ought to be a sharper line between the two. If the state wishes to retain the requirement of solemnization, the state, not the church, should do the solemnizing. Couples who want to marry should be required to retain the services of a public official, who will certify the marriage. If there is concern that marriages may be contracted in haste, the state can institute a waiting period or require proof of pre-marital counseling. But the larger point is: Legally speaking, the couple should be married by the state, separate from whatever marriage ceremony the couple may also choose to have, either before or after the legal certification of marriage by public officials.

As we debate same-sex marriage in America, the issue should not be whether gay men and lesbians will redefine marriage as we know it. The issue should be whether we are willing to redefine the certification of marriage. The separation of the marriage certificate from the marriage ceremony parallels the separation of the birth certificate from infant baptism and the separation of the death certificate from the funeral service. This is the direction we should take when two individuals are matched, and the proponents of same-sex marriage need to lead the way.

First published February 28, 2004, in the Valley News (Vermont/New Hampshire).

The winter of 2004 will enter history as one of the stormiest ever when it comes to gay equality in America. Thousands of gay couples have tied the knot in San Francisco; the California Supreme Court will rule on the legality of these marriages. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has told the Bay State to issue marriage licenses to gay couples starting in May; the state legislature is trying to head the court off at the pass. In both states, Republican governors are adamantly opposed to gay marriage.

And now President Bush has thrown his support behind the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would invalidate the marriage licenses of gay couples and dictate to all 50 states that gay couples can never, ever be legally married in America.

We are reaching a showdown in our culture war about where gay men and lesbians fit in American life. Many citizens believe that gays are morally degenerate and that any recognition of the "homosexual lifestyle," especially by governments, all but guarantees the collapse of Western society. Others believe that in a nation founded on the principle of liberty and justice for all, gay Americans are entitled to the same rights as every other American. And one of those basic rights is the right to fall in love, to set up house, and to grow old with the person you love.

So let us review some of the facts about marriage in these United States.

First, unless you have seen the marriage licenses of couples, you cannot know for certain whether they are legally married. Ironically, one of the few times you need to produce evidence that you are legally married comes when a marriage ends, either through death or divorce. Most of us assume that the people who tell us they are married are telling us the truth. (Given what we know of the trustworthiness of some of these people, perhaps we should question whether they are legally married.)

Second, marriage is less an order from the state than a state of order. We all know legally married people whose marriages are a sham. We all know unmarried people who live together whose lives embody the true meaning of marriage. This, in fact, has been the big news coming out of San Francisco. When a lesbian couple clocks 51 years together and cannot get legally married, then our definitions of marriage need to be adjusted.

Third, if people say you are married, then you are. And this is the other change the gay marriage avalanche has unleashed. Bush expresses concerns about courts redefining marriage. But everyday Americans, gay and straight, have been redefining marriage for years, and no constitutional amendment can stop them. When our friends refer to us as married, I don't say, "Excuse me, but we're only united in a civil union." The fact is: we are married. The state may not call our relationship a marriage, but that's what it is.

Lastly, civil marriage has a unique place in federal law, with over 1,000 benefits assigned to it. Only the federal government can bestow these entitlements, and at the present time, these entitlements are only bestowed upon legally married Americans.

So what can be done in our culture war over gay marriage? Here's what I suggest: Put a federal civil union bill on the table. Call it the Vermont Compromise.

Imagine a scenario where Congress passes a law that extends federal benefits to couples that are joined in a civil union. This would respond to those who argue that the only way to obtain federal benefits is through legal marriage and assuages those who want to leave the definition of marriage untouched. The Vermont Compromise also would hand the issue back to state legislatures, which could decide on their own whether to pass state civil union legislation without worry of interference from Washington or other states.

Granted, some conservatives grouse that civil unions are marriage in everything but name, and some liberals complain that unless unions are called marriages, they lack the social prestige that marriage has. But lawmakers should be wrestling with weightier issues than the "threat" of redefining the word "marriage." A drawn-out culture war on this issue is not in anyone's best interest.

When Congress starts to consider the FMA, here's hoping a courageous lawmaker will introduce a federal civil union bill. Let's debate whether gay couples merit equality under the law, not whether straight couples can keep the word "marriage" to themselves. Let's discuss the special rights that empty-nest and childless straight couples currently enjoy and seriously examine what happens if we extend these rights to gay couples with children.

And one more suggestion: To avoid charges of separate but unequal, make civil unions open to straight couples. If conservatives are serious about protecting the sanctity of marriage, they should start by separating what the state does from what religious institutions do, which is to protect sacred things.

Our civil war over gay marriage has already left many emotionally wounded. A battle over the FMA will only multiply the number of casualties. The Vermont Compromise wouldn't satisfy everyone. But it likely would unite us more than divide us.

First published Nov. 20, 2003, in The Dartmouth.

Anniversaries do not always neatly coincide with history, but invocations of the past often have much to say about the realities of the present.

These thoughts came to mind as I was reading David Levering Lewis's biography of W.E.B. DuBois. In 1906, DuBois, author of The Souls of Black Folks and founder of the NAACP, met with others in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, for the second annual meeting of the Niagara Movement. The choice of location was symbolic: they were commemorating the 100th anniversary of John Brown's birth.

Brown, a white abolitionist who led a raid on the federal armory in Harper's Ferry in hopes of starting a black uprising, was born in 1800, so those who met in Niagara were six years late in their remembrance. And here I am, almost three years early in remembering and invoking the 1906 Niagara meeting. Two centenary remembrances in spirit only. But just as the events of 1906 caused DuBois and others to think of Brown then, so do the events of 2003 cause me to recall Niagara now.

The connections I see between then and now revolve around civil rights for gay Americans. For those who object to comparing black civil rights with gay civil rights, let me, a black gay man, cite Mel Boozer, another black gay man of a generation ago. "I know what it means to be called a nigger. I know what it means to be called a faggot. And I can sum up the difference in one word: none." To dismiss the black gay experience as unimportant to a discussion on gay civil rights is akin to dismissing the Harvard-trained DuBois as unrepresentative of blacks and thus unqualified to speak about black civil rights.

He was qualified, and for the Niagara conference, he authored an Address to the Country. "In the past year," DuBois wrote, "the work of the Negro-hater has flourished in the land." That work consisted of disenfranchising black voters, discriminating against blacks in travel and public accommodations, and undermining the education of black children. Nothing close to this type of systemic assault has yet affected gay Americans. But we are seeing the stirrings of this type of majority opposition to the gay minority.

The work of the gay-hater has flourished in the land this past year. In the wake of positive court rulings on behalf of gay Americans, some Americans are demanding that lawmakers bring the "gay scourge" under control, by state law at a minimum, by federal constitutional amendment if necessary. It reminds me of calls in the early twentieth century to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave blacks the right to vote, or calls mid-century, in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, to restrict the federal government in race relations or to make busing for integration illegal.

DuBois wrote that "against this [systemic discrimination] the Niagara Movement eternally protests ... We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America." DuBois upset many, but he was right. Blacks were equal in fact and thus must be made equal in law.

The fundamental reason why gay Americans are not yet equal in law - why gays cannot legally protect their relationships and families to the extent that straight people can, cannot serve in the military, and in some places cannot adopt - is because most Americans refuse to accept gay people as equal in fact. The majority of Americans presume that gays are inferior, just as a majority of white Americans (especially in the South) presumed in 1906 that blacks were inferior. And just as whites then were unapologetic about their beliefs, so many straights today are unembarrassed to confess that, to them, gay people are sub-human or, more perniciously, simply need to act straight - have to "pass" - in order to eliminate the "gay problem." But gays will no longer participate in self-oppression; we don't need to pass.

DuBois listed five demands: the right to vote; the elimination of separate accommodations (which he called "un-American, undemocratic, and silly"); the freedom to associate; equity in law enforcement; and proper education. The outer two claims have no immediate parallel to the gay experience, but the inner three certainly do, as laws segregating and singling out gays persist.

DuBois provocatively asked: "Cannot the nation that has absorbed 10 million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb 10 million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?" Again, in echo: cannot America make an equal number of gays fully enfranchised American citizens?

In his biography of John Brown, DuBois wrote that "the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression." And with the price tag of gay repression mounting - in special conclaves lambasting gay clergy, in conservative campaigns denouncing same-sex marriage, in taxpayer dollars fueling attempts to enact laws and amendments that would make gay Americans permanent second-class citizens - we would better use our fiscal and moral capital by giving gays freedom under the law.

John Brown's body may lie a-moldering in the grave, but the undying truth he stood for - freedom cannot be denied - marches on. DuBois knew and invoked that truth in his day. Let us fall into step with this truth now.

Originally appeared Oct. 9, 2001, in the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader.

IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN, a group called the Alliance for Marriage has proposed an amendment to the federal constitution. "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." Their spokespeople freely admit they want to make same-sex marriage illegal in America.

According to its Web site, the Alliance hopes "to strengthen the institution of marriage and restore a culture of married fatherhood in American society." But outlawing same-sex marriage will not strengthen and restore marriage, nor will it erase the legal challenges gay couples face. In fact, social and religious conservatives have yet to make a persuasive case why gay couples should be denied the legal incidents that marriage provides. Marriage laws allow couples to protect their property, their representation of each other, and their dependents. And recent events show how gay couples suffer in these areas.

Property. In San Francisco, a dog mauled a woman to death. Under current law, her female partner cannot sue the dog's owners for wrongful death. Not only is she emotionally upended by this tragedy; she risks foreclosure and bankruptcy because she cannot recover the lost wages that her partner earned and that they shared. In Tampa, a policewoman is killed in the line of duty. Her partner will not receive the policewoman's pension, because such pensions go only to married surviving partners, and since the two were women, they could not marry. Throughout the nation, surviving gay partners have lost homes through estate taxes and relatives of the deceased who have the legal right to move in (figuratively and literally). And forget about transferring retirement benefits. Current law poorly protects gay couples and their property.

Representation. Near Spokane, a 35-year-old man lay comatose. His 32-year-old partner can visit him only because the man's family permits him. The hospital spokesman: "If we have a conflicting interest in patients who can't speak for themselves, we look for legal documents. We follow the state statute." And state statutes do not readily recognize the commitments these men made to each other. Most thirtysomethings know whom they want to speak for them if they are unable to speak for themselves. Many get married in anticipation of this kind of crisis. But current laws hamstring gay couples in choosing who speaks for whom -- and in making these choices stick.

Dependents. Like it or not, some gay couples have children: from previous marriages; by artificial insemination; through adoption. Gay parents, like their straight counterparts, have proven themselves fit as parents. But existing laws make it difficult -- and, in some states, impossible -- for both partners to be legal guardians of children they parent together. Not allowing gay parents to legalize their relationship jeopardizes the children when something happens to one of the parents. And the recent federal decision upholding the Florida law banning gays (couples and singles) from adopting while allowing single heterosexuals to adopt shows how laws that punish gays end up hurting children.

These are everyday examples; stories from Sept. 11 abound. Gay couples need property, representation, and dependent protections. No wonder same-sex marriage looms on the horizon.

Conservatives intent on protecting the institution of marriage ought to rethink their strategy. Rather than keeping marriage away from gay couples, the federal government should get out of the marriage business. And this is easy to do.

Enact a federal civil union law. Change the laws with property, representation, and dependent protections from "marriage" to "civil union." Eliminate penalties that keep blended families and elderly couples from getting hitched. Make civil unions available to gays and straights alike. And give marriage back to houses of worship. You want legal protections? Get a civil union. You want marriage? Go to your faith community.

This approach upholds "the sanctity of marriage." Churches, for example, determine the distribution of their holy sacraments; who wants a government official dictating who can receive communion or get baptized? But governments have a compelling interest in granting property, representation, and dependent protections to citizens who want and need them. Through court order and legislative action, governments are extending these protections to gay couples. Conservatives here can grant these protections to all couples and turn the sacrament of marriage over to professionals who regularly handle holy things.

But time is running out to make this cultural shift. When same-sex marriage comes to America, it will not be because gay activists prevailed. It will be because social and religious conservatives refused to offer all Americans a legal alternative to marriage.

Originally appeared Oct. 9, 2001, in the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader.

Courts in Canada have recently ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. This summer, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court may do the same. We're heading toward a national debate on same-sex marriage that will make Vermont's civil union brawl look like cocktail conversation.

Should gay couples have the same legal rights, benefits and responsibilities as straight couples?

I focus on legal issues, because we will never agree on religious ones.

For many, marriage is fundamentally a religious institution, sanctioned first by God and supported secondarily by civil law. According to this view, marriage requires one man and one woman. We all know the bumper-sticker summary: It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

Those who disagree with the court rulings are correct in stating that the rulings radically redefine marriage as we know it. And those who support same-sex marriage shouldn't shrink from admitting this as well.

Traditionalists also say that giving gay couples the benefits of marriage cheapens and undermines marriage. These accusations, if true, are far more serious than the fact of redefinition. Our Vermont experiment, however, suggests that they are false.

Take cheapen, for example. No one can prove that my civil union with my partner of 11 years devalues my neighbor's marriage. It's an opinion, and a silly one, for it masks a rather dim view of marriage. According to vital records reports from Vermont's Department of Health, there were fewer divorces in Vermont in 2001 (the first full year of the civil union law) than in 1999 (before there was a single civil union), but in 2000 and 2001, the number of divorces was significantly greater than the number of civil unions. Gay couples getting hitched demean marriage more than straight couples getting unhitched? I don't buy it.

As for undermining marriages, 6,056 marriages were performed in Vermont in 1999, 122 more than in 1998. In 2000, the first year civil unions were available, 6,271 marriages were performed in Vermont, 215 more than in 1999.

Then there's the 2001 report. 5,983 marriages were performed in Vermont, 288 less than in 2000. We'll have to wait for the 2002 report to see if 2001 was an anomaly (perhaps due to the terrorist attacks?) or part of a long-term trend. If the latter, traditionalists may have ammunition to argue that, as gay rights expand, marriage contracts. Still, I wager that none of the folks who got married in 2000 and 2001 feel that the civil union law weakens their marriages.

There's another interesting statistic in the reports. "The percentage of civil (marriage) ceremonies increased to 58.9 percent in 2001. This percent has increased every year since 1990 when it was 47.2 percent." More and more couples are choosing a justice of the peace or a judge instead of a minister or rabbi to get married. This is as true for first-timers as for people who are getting married for the second or third time. In 2001, for example, more first-time Vermont brides opted for civil ceremonies than for religious ones. (The flip-flop for grooms happened in 2000.)

This statistic should concern traditionalists more than same-sex marriage.

It says that more and more straight couples are separating the legal aspects of marriage from the liturgical ones, which is precisely what the courts are doing.

Civil marriage in Vermont is now more popular than religious marriage, and I suspect that other states (and Canada) have also seen an increase in the number of civil ceremonies and a decrease in the number of religious ceremonies.

Two years ago, I wrote for the The (Manchester) Union Leader that America would do well to follow the European model and separate civil marriage from religious marriage. I suggested that we make civil unions available to all, straight and gay, and reserve marriage for religious institutions. The continued increase of civil marriages only strengthens my case for a "radical redefinition" of marriage.

Meanwhile, traditionalists need to spell out why gay couples - many of whom have children - should be denied the protections afforded to married couples.

Until they do, the refusal to offer these protections comes across as the fiery imposition of religious belief, not the cool decision of civil authority.

Adam and Eve, Adam and Steve, and Miriam and Eve all need legal protection.

A May 2003 Gallup Poll revealed that 49 percent of Americans support laws that provide such protection. California's legislature is poised to pass such a law, but it is a sad commentary on the power of religion, tradition and inertia that, so far, courts must mandate such laws that promise liberty and justice for all.

Will these rulings mean that other states and the federal government will follow Vermont's example and pass laws that support gay couples? I doubt they will. But they should.