Mickey Nardo makes the point (see his comment to my previous blog) that he would reverse Prop8 simply on the grounds that we make laws to protect others from harm. But no one has shown that anyone is harmed by someone else's same-sex marriage.
Good point. My favorite anecdote to argue a similar question -- who harms marriage? -- stems from the time in 2004 when San Francisco's mayor challenged California's law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and performing some ceremonies himself.
The first couple in line was Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. Long known and respected as leading activists for gay civil rights, this elderly lesbian couple had also been life partners in a committed relationship for more than 50 years.
A few weeks earlier, Brittney Spears woke up one morning to discover that, during the previous night of wild partying with an old boyfriend from high school, she had impulsively married him without quite meaning to. They were partying in Las Vegas where The Little White Wedding Chapel is open for business 24 hours a day to accommodate just such impulsive weddings -- for heterosexual couples, that is.
In the 55 hours it took her handlers to arrange an annulment, Brittney was entitled to more than 1000 rights and benefits that our laws grant to married couples but that were denied to Dell and Phyllis, whose marriage license was later declared null and void by the courts, because it was against the CA law in 2004.
Nine months after that caper, Brittney married someone else. And since then, her life has splashed across the media, featuring a messy divorce, repeated hospitalizations for drug addiction, encounters with the police, contempt of court for failure to comply with judges' orders, and subsequent loss of custody of her children -- not exactly the finest example of marriage and motherhood.
I want some 'Sanctity of Marriage' proponent to explain to me how Phyllis and Dell are a threat to the sanctity of marriage, but Brittney can turn it off and on at her whim -- or in a drug addled state -- and it's just fine, as long as she and her partner are equipped with genitals that are different.
Perhaps there is "poetic justice" for Phyllis and Dell, even if there is as yet no legal justice. They took advantage of the short-lived Court ruling to get married again -- legally this time -- in the summer of 2008. Whether the Court overturns Prop8 and lets its prior decision stand, at least it lasted long enough for the terminally ill, 87 year old Dell to die happily married to her long term, beloved partner in August 2008.
Of course, I think the critics' claim that it will destroy the sanctity of marriage refers ostensibly to the institution itself, not to individual marriages. I'll save my thoughts about the psychology behind this for another blog.
Ralph
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"Sanctity" preservation doesn't sound very legal to me. It sounds a lot like "virginity." I think that the objection to gay marriage must be that it would legitimize homosexuality, which the opponents want to keep in the realm of sin, just like they want to keep premarital heterosexual sex in the realm of sin. They object to pregnancy prevention [birth control] or termination [abortion] with the same fierceness. Lets face it, sex is still bad unless it's for baby-making.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting to me is their preoccupation with sex. They leave love and commitment out of their formulations [the point of your examples]. They still see marriage as "permission to have sex." Gay sex is not permitted. Premarital sex is not permitted. We already have our laws about that. They have to do with age and mutual consent, not marriage. They are about exploitation.
The more I think about it, the harder it is for me to generate any rational argument they might raise against gay marriage. And in the area of individual rights, democracy is not operative. Our Constitution is fairly clear on that point - life, libery, and the pursuit of happiness - inalienable.