Originally published May 4, 2000, in Bay Windows (Boston).
HERE IN VERMONT, I had read and heard, again and again, that "civil union" is "marriage" by another name. Just this past week, a letter to the Rutland (Vermont) Herald sounded that warning (along with the "fact" that homosexuals use children for sexual pleasures at a rate that is 30 times greater than that for heterosexuals). Good people - by definition, only straight people can be good - must oppose civil unions, because traditional marriage is threatened by the legal recognition of gay couples.
I'll admit that at first I didn't understand how two gay people getting hitched threaten Ozzie and Harriet next door. But the debate up here has made me see a bit more clearly where the threat lies and why some folks believe that civil unions and marriage are synonymous.
Forget, for a moment, that the civil union bill means that civilly recognized gay and straight couples in Vermont will enjoy identical state benefits under the law. (I have a harder time forgetting that we won't get federal benefits under the state bill.) Strangely enough, very few opponents to civil unions have argued against giving gay couples benefits. In fact, the leader of the main local pro-traditional marriage organization conceded before the state Senate Judiciary Committee that she personally didn't object to giving gay couples the legal benefits that straight married Vermonters enjoy.
So where's the beef?
For many people - and for me, as well - to say you are married means that you have had a marriage ceremony. And while that ceremony can be as simple as taking an oath before a civil magistrate or as furtive as an out-of-state elopement, for many people the ceremony means "wedding." And we all know what "wedding" means: tuxedos and taffeta, churches and clergy, organs and organdy.
I'll wager that the supporters of traditional marriage follow the same thought trail as I do. Since they cannot see how any couple can be legally recognized without a wedding of some kind, to them "getting unionized" means "getting married." They balk at the idea of two men or two women standing before a minister and vowing, "before God and these witnesses," to love and to cherish the other person "until death us do part." For them, there's either one bride too many or one too few, so there can be no kiss. To them, the whole idea of gay unions is ludicrous, because they cannot imagine what a gay wedding would look like.
Now, I know a few gay couples who want an old-fashioned wedding ("love and honor, yes, but not obey"). And I've been to a few gay weddings myself. But the debate up here reminded me: I really don't need or want a wedding. Church-goer that I am, I don't need my church's blessing on something that is already blest. My partner and I hate wearing tuxedos. And as a professional pianist, I can do without the organ.
Saying that we don't want a wedding tells me we don't want traditional marriage either. Let the straight couples have the marriage ceremony. And let them have marriage, traditional or otherwise.
Make no mistake: Mike and I do want the rights, benefits, and responsibilities that married people enjoy. But I don't require the rite to obtain the rights. And that's the beauty of Vermont's law: the state provides us benefits without the societal expectation that we'll have a wedding.
In fact, the opponents to gay marriage have a point that "marriages without weddings," which is what civil unions are, will weaken traditional marriage. Vermont's civil union law separates the religious aspects of the wedding ceremony from the civil recognition of committed couples. To my knowledge, no lawsuit has yet prevailed that has asked the government to separate religious marriage from civil marriage, even though we already separate religious and civil divorce.
But we would all benefit from a separation between church and state when it comes to marriage. Have a civil ceremony to receive the legal benefits of coupledom. Then, for those find the rite important, have a separate religious ceremony. Give marriage back to the church where it belongs. (My! It all sounds like Europe!)
So here is our opportunity to point out how civil unions are not only different from but are also better than traditional marriage. I want to be able to visit Mike in the hospital. I don't need to exchange rings to secure that right. I want him to inherit our property tax-free. I don't need a ministerial pronouncement to make sure that happens. I can do without the flowers and the caterer. I can do without a kiss in front of God's representative on earth. A party at our house with family and friends will be fine by me. (We're planning to certify our civil union at our home around the time of our ninth anniversary this October.)
Getting "C.U.'ed" works for us. Granted, Mike and I will only get the benefits that the state of Vermont confers upon us. But I can see the day when, after other states have followed Vermont and passed civil union bills of their own, someone on Capitol Hill will introduce federal civil union legislation, granting to gay and lesbian couples all of the federal rights, benefits, and responsibilities that married people enjoy.
I'm hoping it will be someone from the Vermont delegation who proposes the federal legislation. And yes, I'd like to see that legislation enacted sooner rather than later.
But if the Feds don't want to call it "marriage": that too will be just fine by me. By then, Mike and I will have a number of years behind us being "union men."