Those of us who are not in the United States will rejoice with our sisters and brothers in California and the other 49 states that Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that removed the right to marry from same-sex partners, has been struck down as against the United States Constitution. There has been a shedload of comment about it, and one of the best is
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shelbycub's
posting on it. I would like to quote one part of it (but advise you to read the entire post):
I know a nurse who said that she never thought about gay rights until the day that a man's partner passed away suddenly from a brain anurysm. They tried to save him, but there was nothing that could be done.
She said for the first time in 9 years as a nurse, when someone cried out in grief, she put her hands to her ears. She said that the grief of loss was so profound that it was almost unbearable. The poor man was alone at the hospital, since no other family members had the time to arrive just yet. He wanted some time alone, so he went into another room.
When the grieving man's partner's family arrived, they were very cold to him. Words were said on both sides, and rather than helping each other to grieve, they only poured salt in each other's wounds. But after all was said and done, however, the family had each other, and the widower had no one.
My friend went to him, and going against her own rules of nursing, asked the man if he had anyone who could come to be with him. He said he didn't, what was left of his family being scattered all over the country, and none were really close to him.
She asked if there were any friends, and he said yes, but he didn't know if he could call them.
She asked for his phone, and just started going through the phones contact list, until she found someone who was close to the man, and could contact others. Within a half an hour, the man had several friends who were holding his hand, letting him cry, and helping him grieve.
"I didn't sleep at all that night," she said to me, "because I knew that seeing that changed how I saw people." (Emphasis mine. CH)
I asked her if she had ever seen anything like that before, and she said she hadn't. Not of that magnitude.Now the point I want to make, and the point that needs to be made, is that anonymous pictures of same-sex couples being married, shedding tears of joy, or otherwise celebrating what is about to become their right (I hope and trust) do not necessarily melt hearts and change minds. Militant homophobes will only see in them mirrors of their own homophobia and religious revulsion against what they believe is sin and perversion.
What
can change hearts and minds is
knowing someone who is out, living his or her life as an authentic person. As St. Irenaeus of Lyons said,
The glory of God is man, fully alive. (
man being understood here as encompassing men and women equally).
Marriage, besides being a civil activity (as the judge ruled yesterday), is also a public one. Records are kept, notice is given, and the ceremony is often open to the public in a courthouse. The most important part of the ruling, and characterised as a statement of fact (ie, a finding that is a concrete reality, not a legal interpretation of reality), is that we are talking not about a religious relationship between two people, but a civil contract sanctioned by the state. The judge ruled that clergy are
allowed or licensed by the civil authorities to solemnise marriages. Thus marriage as a religious relationship is different from marriage as a civil relationship. The corollary to this is that divorce is also a civil relationship, and is a reality no matter whether the religious authorities of whichever religion believe that marriage is indissoluble and that the two partners of a couple who are civilly divorced are still married.
Those of us in favour of civil marriage for same-sex couples have for years argued this position: civil marriage is a separate item from religious marriage. So the finding of the judge vindicates that position.
The implications of this ruling will, if upheld in superior courts and ultimately, by the Supreme Court, will be far-reaching. For example, no state will be allowed to refuse a marriage license or a civil marriage ceremony to a same-sex couple. That will apply as much in Alabama as it does in Massachusetts today. It will require the Federal Government to recognise same-sex marriages for a number of situations in which it does not today. Same-sex married couples will be able to immigrate to the US from abroad (where one partner is a US citizen) on the same basis that different-sex married couples do. Tax breaks for different-sex married couples will have to be extended to same-sex married couples. Social Security survivor's benefits will have to be extended in a similar manner. So, besides there being civil rights implications, there will be financial implications. This is, of course, not taking into account the question of whether such benefits and privileges
ought to be extended to married couples generally.
The ultimate effect of this ruling is that religious beliefs, however conventional or widely held, cannot control or be seen to control the civil law of the land. The equal-protection clauses in the Constitution cannot be set aside because of a religious belief that two groups are not equal or entitled to equal protection under the law. This ruling is our
Brown v. Board of Education. Even if it is overturned (and various Justices of the Supreme Court will find it difficult to vote against it because it is congruent with previous rulings of theirs), it will be the subject of study in our schools and especially in law schools. I am reminded that the ruling which upheld the constitutionality of laws criminalising same-sex sexual activity was, a few decades later, overturned by the same Court that ruled these laws constitutional.
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