We The Un-People Salute SCOTUS

So, now that the California Supreme Court has ruled that a disinformed majority of voters may declare that some of the people are second-class citizens without equal constitutional rights, what's next? Can any majority now withhold anything it pleases from any minority? If not, exactly where was the line drawn?

Until today, I had blissfully supposed that the courts protected minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

But no. After forty-plus years of sitting in the back of this bus, not by choice, I've begun to get it that in the US of A, the Constitution is not for me.

This was an incredible ruling. The only other legislative catastrophes of comparable dimensions (in my lifetime) have been DOMA and the obstinant refusal of US states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Funny how they all cluster around WSEX on your radio dial. Meaning around the enforced alignment of your gender identity with your biological sex, and the social ramifications that follow from that.

It's the quaint but pervasive notion that homosexuality is a mis-alignment of biological sex with [inherent] gender roles that makes homophobia just another manifestation of sexism. This, then, makes the watchful among us wonder who benefits from keeping queers down.

So anyway, back to my rapidly disappearing legal personhood.

What's next? Does this not mean that he who has the gold (to fund voter propaganda and finance voter turnout) will win the civil rights lottery? If he who has the gold rules, look out, people. The Baptists, the LDS, and the Vatican are not paupers.

And does this decision not invite a 100 Year War of the Propositions in every state?

What would that mean for us at a practical level? Should we plan to move like ping pong balls whenever the majority in state we’re in votes to declare that we’re second-class persons? Will I have to re-file my taxes with each and every reversal? Married. Not married. Married. Not married. And what if I’m in the hospital when a vote comes down? Would Catherine have to leave the room?

People can’t be partly equal. And state-based solutions obviously can’t work.

"Separate and Not Equal"

From the editorial page of the New York Times: Separate and Not Equal
Published: December 20, 2008

"Civil unions are an inadequate substitute for marriage. Creating a separate, new legal structure to confer some benefits on same-sex couples neither honors American ideals of fairness, nor does it grant true equality. The results are clearly visible in New Jersey, which continues to deny same-sex couples some of the tangible civil benefits that come with marriage.

"Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey has long said that he would sign a measure granting the right to marry to couples of the same sex. We are heartened that he has declared that that should happen sooner rather than later.

"We hope Mr. Corzine intends to prod legislators into passing such a law early in the 2009 session. That would make New Jersey the first state to legalize marriage for same-sex couples through legislative action. Three other states — Connecticut, Massachusetts and California — have done so through the courts. Unfortunately, California voters approved a ballot measure in November rescinding that right, at least for now.

"Mr. Corzine made his statement after a state commission released its final report on New Jersey’s two-year-old civil union law. The commission noted the hurt and stigma inflicted by shutting out gay people from the institution of marriage. It also found that civil unions do not assure gay couples of the same protections, including the right to collect benefits under a partner’s health insurance program and to make medical decisions on behalf of a partner who is unable to do so. The panel concluded unanimously that the state should enact a law to remove the inequities.

"We regret that the leaders of the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature do not view this issue with the same urgency. Senate President Richard Codey, for instance, said recently that progress in civil rights areas 'is typically achieved in incremental steps.' We suspect that political expedience is clouding Mr. Codey’s sense of fairness. Next year in New Jersey, the governorship and all seats in the Assembly are up for grabs in an election. Some Republicans already are talking about making their opposition to same-sex marriage a campaign issue.

"Governor Corzine typically takes the right side on important issues, but he has been known to retreat in the face of opposition. We hope that’s not the case here. It’s past time for him and for the Democrats in Trenton to find the political courage to extend the right to marry to gay couples."

It's time for the nation to find that political courage. Anything less is despicable.

Gay Marriage, Anyone?

If you haven't read Lisa Miller's article in Newsweek about the Bible and gay marriage, you're in for either a shock or a treat, depending on your--dare I say it--stance. Entitled "Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy," the piece takes a daring swing across the pages of scripture and the words of selected churchly marriage rites to draw what I would think is the obvious conclusion for Christians: Jesus was about inclusion, not exclusion, and if you're going to throw the Bible at gays and lesbians, you'd better remember that the Bible's many models for marriage include some pretty repugnant arrangements.

For every biblical pronouncement on male-male sex, there are at least a dozen different interpretations, each dependent on the extent and quality of the interpreter's biblical exegetic training and tools and on his or her politico-theological orientation. For every strict constructionist, there are at least a dozen thorny issues to be explained or waved away--including the story of David and Jonathan, and the story of Naomi and Ruth, not to mention the explicit teachings of Jesus and the values and precepts implicit in his life, or the fact that adultery is mentioned in the Ten Commandments, along with killing, but same-sex marriage just isn't. You'd think, if it were in fact a fatal assault on one of society's main bearing walls, it would rate a mention in the grandfather of all No-No lists.

It's a very good piece for a mainstream popular magazine (as contrasted with a scholarly tome). Since I lambasted Newsweek recently for another piece in its Religion section, I think I owe it the courtesy of a favorable review for this one. Read it. These are among the kinds of questions students at good seminaries wrestle with, with the aid of good scholarly tools like Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, contemporaneous documents, comparative translations, and a few hundred years' worth of critical scholarship in many languages, from many traditions--aids not really referenced in this piece.

Most pew-warmers, however, don't get even a tiny taste of what goes on intellectually behind the doors of a good, tough seminary classroom. And that's because most graduated preachers don't have the courage to deal with the politics of issues like the place of homosexuals in our society today, or the integrity to take on the theocratic Right.

Gay Marriage, Immigrants, and the Borderlands

Two of the most divisive civil rights issues in the USA today are immigrants and GLBT persons. The two groups may seem radically different on the surface, but take another look.

In reality and in metaphor, both GLBT persons and immigrants live in the borderland, a place defined more by not-belonging than anything else. Both are seen as semi-persons when a person is one who takes ownership of full human rights as given, and lives so fully out in the sunshine as to be average, normative, commonplace.
Both, regardless of talent, potential, merit, or contribution, are deliberately fenced out by the dominant culture’s blanket appraisal of difference.

Thomas Sowell, the prominent rightwing African American political economist at Stanford's Hoover Institution, wrote on this election day that bans on gay marriage aren't about persons but rather about behavior.

Jim Gilchrist and the radical anti-immigrant Minutemen say, similarly, that they aren't focused on persons either, but rather on behavior.

In exactly the way that the Minutemen claim not to be racists, Sowell claims not to be heterosexist.

Both arguments are sheer sophistry.

Let's penetrate the fog.

Is it truly pure coincidence, then, that in both cases, their targets just so happen to comprise only one category of people instead of all people?

If the concern is the behavior "gay marriage," as Sowell claims, then isn't it a fact--despite Sowell's obscenely propagandistic hypothetical that two heterosexual men might marry "to make a point"--that only one authentic, reality-based category of persons is targeted? Yes, of course it's a fact. So then, is that fact a pure coincidence? No. The behavior "gay marriage" is intrinsic to the persons involved. It can't be separated from the persons, by definition: Gay marriage can't happen between heterosexuals or it isn't gay.

If the concern is law-breaking, as Gilchrist and the Minutemen claim, law-breaking also includes rape, murder, robbery, kidnapping, battery, child-abandonment, and drunk driving. Therefore, we should expect to see those who are moved to outrage by lawbreaking be equally focused on all crimes. Actually, we should expect to see far greater focus on the most serious crimes, like rape, murder, and kidnapping. Since we don't, we must ask whether it is truly just a coincidence that their focus is only on poor, brown people from south of the border. No, of course not. In this case, although the behavior can be separated from the person--others can and do enter the country illegally--Gilchrist isn't manning the Alaskan border snaring Russians.

Sowell argues that all law targets behavior, and that some behavior ought to be forbidden. That's true. And then he commits his second sophistry, by equating gay marriage with polygamy and pedophilia. In what precise sense can a marriage between two consenting adults be analogous to polygamy or pedophilia? He'd like us to gambol like little lambs after his demagogue's implication, but let's not. The truth is that, by definition, there is no comparison.

Sowell's third sophistry says more about his resolute bigotry than about anything else. He writes:

"Despite heavy television advertising in California for 'gay marriage,' showing blacks being set upon by police dogs during civil right marches, and implying that homosexuals face the same discrimination today, the analogy is completely false.
Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus because they were black. They were doing exactly what white people were doing-- riding a bus. That is what made it racial discrimination."

Really? OK, let's check. Let's make a couple of word changes and see what happens to Sowell's logic:

Homosexuals have to do without marriage because they are homosexuals. They want to do exactly what heterosexuals do--get married. That is what makes it heterosexist discrimination.

In Gilchrist's case and Sowell's, their outrage is in fact focused exclusively on a specific kind of person, making each man's target not behavior after all, but a single category of people, of perceived offenders.

And everyone knows it.

It's sad that both men try to delude us with dishonest argument, but when one of them is an accomplished scholar, it's also a dis-grace--a falling out of that state of grace that is conferred by intellectual integrity and openness of spirit.

The result, in both cases, if sometimes in different ways and degrees, is brutalization of both target and gunner. What's often overlooked, though, is that those who create or sustain injustice, like Sowell and Gilchrist, are often damaged more severely by their bigotry than their targets are. Without in any way minimizing that kind of dire deprivation--I wouldn't dare--it's not all about jobs and economic security: Would you rather be César Chávez or Tom Tancredo? Would you rather be Rosa Parks or Phyllis Shlafly? Would you rather be Harvey Milk or Dan White?

Not just the nation but all of us everywhere urgently need for bigger and better reasons the energy it takes to fence people out for unjust reasons. I believe that that energy was meant for, and is essential for, true, global, planetary, soul-and-body nourishment. When it’s diverted and perverted, everyone is starved. Not just those in the borderlands.

A Modest Marriage Proposal

Many have pointed out that marriage is a religious rite. As that's the case, IRS, state, municipal, military, employment, and any other secular, civil benefits that currently accrue to marriage shouldn't accrue to marriage at all. In fact, I should think that when they do, there's a probable violation of the separation of Church and State clause.

It's not an argument I've read before. This just came to me as one possible way forward: Let's let the religious fundamentalists control their fundamentalist religions, and enable the rest of us to control civil society in the USA. To that end, how about taking the equality emphasis off the rite of "marriage" and putting it on civil unions? It would work like this:

Provided ALL current and future secular, civil benefits that now accrue to marriage will then accrue to civil unions, let's push for equality in civil unions. Then, everyone who is civilly united will be entitled to all civil, secular benefits that now accrue to marriage. If they want the special religious benefits that accrue to marriage, they'll have to get married. The denominations will decide who can marry, and the Officially Godly People can fight that out among themselves and leave the rest of us in peace.

An Open Letter to Mormons from a Fancher Granddaughter

Readers in the Southwestern USA are probably aware of it, but others might not know that leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), whose members are informally called Mormons, have formally taken sides in the California anti-gay proposition banning "gay" marriage. In a move that has divided Mormons themselves, the church is actively soliciting its members to oppose both CA Proposition 8 and the similar Arizona Proposition 102. From The Advocate: A letter sent to Mormon bishops and signed by church president Thomas S. Monson and his two top counselors calls on Mormons to donate ''means and time'' to the ballot measure. A note on the letter, dated June 20, says it should be read during church services on June 29, but the letter was published Saturday on several websites.

Following is an open letter to Mormons drawing parallels between 19th C Christian zealots' vicious persecution of Mormons and 21st C Christian zealots' vicious persecution of gay men and lesbian women. The parallels, while not exact, are close enough: zealots lack compassion, allegiance to constitutional justice, and humility. Consequently, they behave in ways that de-humanize themselves and others to a degree that often cannot be measured, much less atoned for. It might be expected that Mormons would understand this simple fact better than most and refrain from acting to restrain others' constitutional rights on the basis of malicious bigotry.

Hello.

I suspect you know the name "Fancher."

For those who don't, one Capt. Alexander Fancher headed "the Fancher Train," a wagon train passing through Mountain Meadows, UT, en route to California in September, 1857. The Salt Lake Tribune reported what happened:

"A California-bound wagon train of about 140 Arkansas emigrants led by John Baker and Alexander Fancher camped near the present-day southwestern Utah town of Enterprise in September 1857. Fears that the U.S. Army was preparing to forcefully remove Brigham Young as Utah territorial governor and impose martial law were at their height. Spurred by inflammatory sermons of LDS leaders, a siege mentality focused Mormon resentment on the 'gentile' wagon train.

"Early on Sept. 7, a group of American Indians and local Mormon 'Indian missionaries' attacked the encircled wagon train without warning. ... With their ammunition, food and water almost gone, the emigrants were persuaded by Mormon officials on the afternoon of Sept. 11 to surrender their arms in exchange for a safe escort past the Indians to Cedar City. ... On a pre-arranged command, the rescuers turned upon the emigrants, joined by Indians who had been lying in wait. Estimates of the death toll include 14 Arkansas men shot in the head, 12 women and 35 youngsters clubbed or knifed to death, with 17 children younger than age 8 surviving the double-cross.

"Nine cowhands hired to drive cattle also were murdered, along with at least 35 other unknown victims. In all, 120 people, mostly women and children, were slain." (Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 2000, p. A-4)"

This is a bitter part of American history. Accordingly, historians for decades have debated the motives for and precise authority for this massacre. They need not concern us here.

What I know beyond any doubt, and the main point of my recitation here, is that this massacre occurred in a wider context of abuse, violence, fear, and anger caused by America's perception of Mormonism.

The reason most often cited was "Christian" opposition to Mormon practices. But whatever such practices were, and why they existed, and what good or evil they did or didn't spawn was not even remotely relevant. What mattered--all that mattered--was perception.

So violent was the storm of rhetoric and outrage that swept the country that Mormons believed their very lives depended upon making a strategic exodus, en mass, to Utah. So it can't have been a matter of perfect joy and tranquility when a wealthy and large wagon train of "Gentiles" (non-Mormons) appeared in the lush Mountain Meadows valley.

Who knew why they came, or where they were headed, or what would follow? Would the US Army come along shortly to evict everyone in favor of new settlers like these? Who could know? There must have been grave concern among everyone of good will, not just about the immigrants' ultimate intentions and their possible potential for being abusive or violent, but also about how the local people would respond if anything untoward did occur. At least that's how I imagine it.

I've been to Mountain Meadow. Without planning or even expecting to, I ended up on the hill overlooking the valley talking with a local descendant, a Mormon farmer who had climbed up to get a fix on his cattle's whereabouts. When he asked me what had brought me there, I just said that my grandmother was a Fancher. Nothing else was required.

We talked for an hour after my partner left for town to get our camera fixed.

I said I hadn't come for vindication, that I didn't even feel particular rage: 1857 was a long time ago. Rage seemed superfluous at best in 1997, and at worst, a ridiculous extravagance that would only perpetuate grief. So I told him that I had just wanted to come because I wanted to get a sense of what else might have happened on both sides. I said that while nothing could ever excuse that extermination, I had a feeling that events surrounding the massacre were more complicated than either side wanted to dwell on.

(And the debate is full of speculation. You can get a sense of it from the unsubstantiated entry about Mountain Meadows at Wikipedia. The fact is, we'll never know if some Christian supremacist acted in brute ignorance and committed an incindiary obscenity or not. Maybe, but we just don't know.)

We talked without animosity, almost as friends. In fact he told me things I'd never have known without him--that some of the children from the train had been brought up by the local families as their own, and where I could find the communal grave holding some of the remains.

He couldn't have missed the fact that we are a lesbian couple. It's evident wherever we go, in our interactions--the habitual fond gestures of a long-married couple--and in our tone and vocabulary with each other. Appropriately enough, that made no difference to him.

I couldn't have missed the fact that he is a Mountain Meadeows Mormon. It was evident in all he said about himself. Appropriately enough, that made no difference to me.

What mattered--the only thing that ever matters--was our mutual kindness and humility.


Though I can't know what transpired in 1857, I am sure that the leading actors on the stage that day were the same ones who are hogging the stage now, in today's debate about gays and lesbians. And then as now, when moral umbrage, misunderstanding, fear, and paranoia overshadow reason, the actual human beings caught up in the clash are rendered invisible. What becomes of them, what horrors play out in their numerous small daily lives as a result is also invisible. It can't be measured, much less accounted for. Only the extremes--the Matthew Shepards and the Mountain Meadows--are noted, and then too briefly.

So this is an appeal to you. You've seen the decades of misery that ensued from the massacre at Mountain Meadows. You know why it occurred, and what relationship it had to years of bigotry poured out on Mormons by "Christians" utterly convinced of their own superiority.

If you remember how it feels to be vilified, abused, ostracized, and penalized because of someone else's misconceptions, maybe you can summon a little humility and a little kindness. No matter what church leaders may tell you, when you pull the level, vote no on Arizona's Proposition 102 and no on California's Proposition 8.

It's only justice.

OK, When I'm Wrong, I'm Really Wrong

My post blaming nine Democrats in the AZ Senate for helping to pass the second coming of a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage was mistaken in this sense: Contrary to my statement, even if all nine had voted against the measure, the Republican majority would still have passed it.

The Republicans control both houses of this state's legislature. In this case, they had the votes, making all Democratic votes moot. I knew that. I guess my brain was in temporary shut down when I penned that bit about the vote. I apologize for misleading my readers, and I appreciate Craig's correction in the comments. I'll be more careful in the future.

Also regarding this vote, Leah Landrum Taylor's absence is certainly to be excused. An anonymous commenter reports that she is in bed, recovering from serious post-childbirth complications. Naturally, nobody expects any legislator to risk serious health consequences for the sake of a vote. We wish her and her family only the best, and hope for her full and speedy recovery.

That said, I have lingering concerns about the remaining eight no-shows. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I do wonder whether eight more Democratic votes against this pernicious gay-baiting measure wouldn't have made a meaningful moral difference across this state, even if it wouldn't have altered the outcome.

I wonder what it would be like to see all the senators of my party stand as one against the fascism creeping across the state in the guise of "Christianity." I wonder what it would be like to see them stand with Paula Aboud and Ken Cheuvront, our two openly homosexual senators, in solidarity with the principle that all people are created equal, with certain unalienable rights.

They still have a chance to do so. The Senate rules were broken in order to silence Aboud and Cheuvront and ramrod the vote. Perhaps that renders the vote itself out of order? I don't know the Senate rules. Far be it from me to offer strategy suggestions. I can only say that I hope that, at the soonest strategically opportune moment, the Democratic senators will find an effective way to address the Republicans' contempt for Senate rules and for the people's business.

I hope, as well, that Arizona's voters remember in November.

Is standing for a bedrock, foundational American principle really too much to ask of legislators? Really? Judging from the behavior of both Republicans and Democrats at every level, and about this matter and numerous others, it is. This readiness to throw principle overboard for the sake of pandering to the lowest common denominator, or for the sake of staying in office, is THE reason why Americans are sick of both parties, nationally and locally.

They're not "leaders." They aren't leading anybody. Although I concede that there are differences of degree among the individuals involved, for the most part, I fear that we have governments of propagandists and panderers, riffraff guns for hire.

If You REALLY Want to Pouf-Proof Marriage. . .

As a dutiful Arizonan much concerned to preserve matrimony in its present thoroughly unsullied, post-Britney-Haggard-McCain-Craig state, I must advise Cathi (love that "i," don't you?) Herrod and the Center for Arizona Policy of a fatal weakness in her strategy to limit marrying to one man and one woman.

Someone should bring this immediately to Mrs. Herrod's attention even if she can't read. Tell it to her. Slowly.

The thing is, the plan to reserve marriage to "one man and one woman" actually won't keep gay men and lesbians out of marriage. It can't.

Sometimes gay men and lesbians enter into matrimony in the usual way: by wedding a member of the opposite sex. Worse, they're driven to it by social disapproval--exactly the same thing that's behind Cathi's proposed amendment, right?

So here's my worry. What if heaping still more abuse onto homosexuals isn't going to keep us out of the closet after all? What if it has just the opposite effect?

More and more of us will want to hide, right? And what better way to hide than getting married? You see the concern.

Cathi Herrod's strategy will mean that even more of us will get married to forestall the dreadful possibility that someday we will want to get married.

It's too horrible to contemplate.

I can see only one solution.

If Mrs. Herrod really wants to reserve marriage for heterosexuals, she's going to have to call for a constitutional test--er, I mean a test in the constitution--for bona fide heterosexuality, and any man or woman who wants to get married in this state will first have to pass it.

I'm sure that Mrs. Herrod can devise a fool-proof--well, maybe not "fool"-proof exactly, more "pouf-proof"--method to prove heterosexuality.

Actually, I think they have a test like that already. It's for sex offenders. (Oh my.)

No need to reinvent the wheel, Cathi. Just come up with something for the girls and we're good to go. Pass the test and get married with heterosexual bells ringing.

I can't imagine anyone would balk at that. There's certainly no reason for worry. . .

Be the Change You Want! Congratulations, CA Newlyweds!

CONGRATULATIONS to all California newlyweds from two other California newlyweds! CJ and I got married in February 2004 at the San Francisco City Hall. We can personally attest to the joy and the transformation that sincere marriage vows create.

Maybe the most important thing about these weddings was said this morning by StarTrek star George Takei, quoting Ghandi: "Be the change you want!"

AZ's GOP and The Constitution: Oil and Water?

Over at PolitickerAZ is the continuing report of a survey of AZ CD5 Republican primary candidates' views on burning issues of the day.

Now that I've read it, I realize once again that I can't look to Republicans like Susan Bitter Smith and Mark Anderson (or John McCain) to consult the founding documents for guidance on how a true American should resolve a controversial question like gay marriage.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights--and the blood shed to sanctify them--established our Republic. Only they define what it means to be an American. Therefore, patriotic Americans don’t just wear flags on their lapels. They swear allegiance to these founding principles, and solemnly promise to uphold, protect, and defend them.

The Declaration begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Constitution and Bill of Rights reaffirm these distinctively American principles.

There it is, in plain English. Every American knows from first grade that (1) it is self evident (2) that ALL of us have (3) God-given rights that (4) no one can sever from us for any reason. Although we can forfeit these rights by committing certain felony offenses, they cannot be arbitrarily taken away. This means that I have exactly the same right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness that any other American has, whether they agree or not.

If you are a patriotic American, you don’t just give this lip service. You are sworn to uphold my rights just as I am sworn to uphold yours. Further, if you are a patriotic American, you have sworn your allegiance to the conviction that your religion does not trump mine. You have sworn to uphold, protect, and defend my rights as if they were your own.

I have seen Democrats assert these values proudly, and I have also seen Democrats trample them. But in all my 60 years, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a single Republican assert these views in order to defend somebody else’s freedoms.

Surely I'm mistaken, but it certainly seems not. It’s been just the opposite. Republicans truly seem to have an in-the-grain antipathy to the concept that all of us have equal unalienable rights. Instead of affirming that, time and again they seek to limit it—-as in proposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage--or undermine it altogether, as in specious “strict construction” and “judicial activism” arguments.

I’ve never understood this, and I want to know.

What is there in the Republican psychology or political philosophy that doesn’t accept, let alone revere, this primary affirmation that makes an American an American?

I’d like to hear Susan Bitter Smith and Mark Anderson and John McCain answer that.

I’d also like to hear them justify their stance on gay marriage with reference to their sworn allegiance to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution, and enumerate the specific, real, concrete, and irreversible harm my marriage in fact has done to them.

I don’t want to hear the rhetoric. I've so been there and done that. I want to see irrefutable proof of tangible harm.

Will they point to their interpretation of religion and say that it transcends the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Not if they are true American patriots. Will they insist that their social and psychological comfort ought to take precedence over my fundamental rights? Not if they are real American patriots.

If they dare make it, I'd like to hear their constitutional defense of their positions that I have no right to live my life in liberty, that they have the right to define whom I may marry, and that my definition of my personal happiness in this most profound of all relationships is not worth their notice. I’m waiting.

Surely it's time for us to hold all our candidates to their oath of office. If they can't even pass that scratch and sniff test, we need to be looking elsewhere.

California Supreme Court Gets it Right!

Speaking as an average American and as one of the 4,000 people who lined up to marry at the San Francisco City Hall in February, 2004, I am thrilled with today's announcement overturning CA's ban on gay marriage.
The ruling said, in part:

"the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic *substantive* legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process."

And there you go.

Marriage must be understood as:

the core set of substantive rights and attributes that are so integral to an individual's liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or the electorate.

That is what we've been saying since Stonewall.

For all but the worst sort of people, this succinct statement should be sufficient to show the irrelevance of surface distinctions to the question of human rights.

PS: For anybody squawking about activist judges, the CA people changed their minds a few times. The CA legislature TWICE supported gay marriage and once voted to ban it. Swartzenegger vetoed the will of the people on supporting gay marriage. The matter went to the state supreme court for its opinion. See, the reason we have courts is to prevent the majority from tyrannizing a minority. Tyrannizing is different from out-voting. Tyrannizing is out-voting from bias in order to discriminate.

AZ Anti-Gay Proposition En Route

Today, like a pack of hyenas, 33 members of the AZ state legislature snarled and swirled long enough to bring us, still yet again one more time, another ballot proposition to make Arizona's gays and lesbians full-fledged second-class citizens.

The fiction is that the measure--defeated once already by Arizonans--would merely ban gay "marriage." In truth, we expect that again it will ban any legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples, including the humble domestic partnership agreement. Thus it will bar us not just from all the benefits of marriage derived from nano-second Vegas drive-through sanctifications, but also from benefits yet to be foreseen or defined in the courts of law.

However, what it likely won't do this time is ban unmarried heterosexual couples who cohabitate. That would snare too many AZ seniors who know that they have smaller retirement incomes if they re-marry than if they remain single and just bunk together. A reprise of that language would again make them mad enough to vote at least in their own self-interest if not to preserve fundamental American rights for us. And they provided the margin of defeat for the last anti-gay proposition.

Will the new measure be unconstitutional? Not if a Republican court can help it. But hey, will I even live long enough to find out?

One hopes that this time, Arizonans of sound mind and spirit will notice that they are being manipulated. Again. By the exact same RepubliCons whose anti-immigrant hatred is manipulating them to plunge the state deeply into the red and into expensive, wasteful, and exhausting court battles like the one about employer sanctions.

One hopes that this time, reasonable Arizonans will resent being buzzed up to take part in another bad-tempered, expensive, wasteful, and ultimately self-sabotaging measure, especially in this year of growing budget woes.

When "the benefits of marriage" are defined to include all the civilities that married heterosexuals take for granted, we gay men and lesbian women who are currently self-supporting in every respect but who depend on official recognition of our domestic partnership agreements for things like health insurance, will find ourselves suddenly dependent on you to pay those bills. Sound like a plan?

And how many lawsuits will this proposition spawn on our dwindling tax base? Hard to say, but you can count on picking up your share of the tab when a lot of justifiably offended tax-paying, yard-raking, neighbor-helping, laundry-washing good Queer citizens hit the wall being erected between us and the Bill of Rights.

And those are just some examples. When all "the benefits of marriage" are denied to us by outlawing any form of legal recognition of our long-term relationships, we will be permanently ghettoized economically, legally, psychically, and socially by our own fellow Americans.

The insult has been delivered. The injury already, at the psychic level, is grotesque, as any one of us can tell you. This is especially the case when not even our own mainstream "progressive" churches have the integrity to counter the Far Right.

This is profoundly damaging stuff, and there's been far too little discussion of that and of the selling out of the great liberal Protestant tradition by wishy-washy clergy and lay leaders afraid to offend a big donor in the pew. I don't know when they went away, but the days of meaningful moral and ethical leadership by the mainstream Protestant church seem to be bygone. It's an incalculable loss to us all.

I'm hoping this isn't the direction that Arizonans want to go in. I'm hoping that "do unto others" still has a tiny ring of relevance here, although I must say that our collective, hypocritical, self-righteous vindictiveness toward undocumented immigrants certainly makes me doubt it. Sorry if I sound pissed off. I am.

This from Equality Arizona:

Thirty-three (33) Members of the Arizona House of Representatives voted YES on SCR 1042, a resolution that would place another so-called "marriage" amendment on the ballot in November.
With their YES votes, 33 Members said they want more litigation that threatens to take away domestic benefits from unmarried couples.

Thirty-three Members want to force Arizona voters to vote again on an issue that has already been decided --- by the Legislature, by the Courts, and by the Voters.
The 33 Members who caved to the pressure of anti-equality and anti-domestic partner forces and voted to perpetuate the politics of division are:
Republicans (31)
Kirk Adams
Mark Anderson
Ray Barnes
Nancy K. Barto
Andy Biggs
Tom Boone
Judy M. Burges
Doug Clark
Rich Crandall
Sam Crump
Adam Driggs
Eddie Farnsworth
Trish Groe
John Kavanagh
Bill Konopnicki
Lucy Mason
Marian McClure
John McComish
Nancy McLain
Rick Murphy
John B. Nelson
Warde V. Nichols
Jonathan Paton
Russell K. Pearce
Michele Reagan
Bob Robson
Bob Stump
Andrew M. Tobin
Jerry Weiers
Steven B. Yarbrough
Jim Weiers

Democrats (2)
Jack A. Brown
Pete Rios

Homo Hatred and Adulthood in the Tribe

Over on AlterNet is a fine piece on gay marriage. Greta Christina quite rightly says that letting us marry will have an effect on straight marriage, and explains why. It’s well worth reading.

But there’s one point that nearly everyone overlooks about gay marriage. In every culture, in every time and place, the first marriage is a rite of passage signifying the participants’ readiness and willingness to assume the responsibilities of Adult in the tribe. As long as we are forbidden to marry, we are perpetual juveniles, easy to trivialize, easily made to seem frivolous, and easy to condescend to.

That, I think, is also the real, fundamental reason we are not permitted to be out (visible) in the military. Defense of the tribe is a paramount responsibility of the Adult. As long as we can be separated from that role--especially if it takes forcing us to lie -- we can be more easily treated with contempt and denied the privileges that come with assuming culturally-defined Adult responsibilities.

It is essential to the viability of a patriarchal society that gays and lesbians be demonized and marginalized. That’s all that these lines in the sand are about. We have to be invisible (closeted) or else we have to be severed from everything that might provide legitimacy and Adult standing. That’s also the reason we’re generally not permitted to adopt children or share full parental custody of children born to our partners, and that’s the reason our children can be taken from us when we come out. Caring for the young is a paramount responsibility of the Adult.

WTF does “patriarchal society” have to do with it? Well, the patriarchy cannot exist without rigid sex roles. Without biology-is-destiny and inflexible norms for what “masculine” and “feminine” mean, there couldn’t be male supremacy. We have to know what a "real" man is to know what "superior" means, right? So, to the extent that we are visible as men and as women who don't accept the assignment, we gays and lesbians are a direct vanguard assault on that whole structure. In fact, we are definable only because we step outside the patriarchy’s sex role mandate.

We are severely punished because we don’t do our part to hold up the myths that sex roles are fixed, immutable, and that males are superior to females. In the patriarchal context, when two men partner, one of them voluntarily gives up male privilege to “become” [like] a female, a signal that patriarchal institutions (like the church) know is fatal. That’s why gay men get beaten and raped. It’s not so disturbing for two women to partner (in the patriarchal context) because what two women do is never as important as what two men do. But if one of them is perceived to usurp male privilege and power, she will be raped and beaten, too. (Violence against lesbians is a hidden statistic caused by the “shame” of being queer and the “shame” of being raped.)

Power analyses such as this one come in handy to those who want to understand why this culture does some of the things it does. To ask “Who cares whether an African American marries a white person” is to act as if fundamental inter-racial power and privilege discrepancies don't exist. To ask “Who cares whether gays and lesbians get married” is to act as if fundamental heterosexual-homosexual power and privilege discrepancies don't exist. They do.

Let’s stop doing that. Let’s keep telling it like it is.

Ten Reasons Gay Marriage Is Wrong

Still making the rounds (I grabbed it from Alas, a blog) --

1. Being gay is not natural. And as you know Americans have always rejected unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because, as you know, a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed. The sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Musing on Andrew Sullivan's Marriage

There are times when I love Andrew Sullivan (The Daily Dish), despite our vast political and theological differences. For me, he’s at his best when he reflects on faith and theology, and when he applies his erudition to fillet the "neocons" and those he rightly calls “Christianists”—a term he coined, analogous to the terms “Islamists,” “Maoists,” “Zionists.” It connotes virulent political extremism, as it is meant to do, which is why Christianists take such heated exception to it. (FYI: A “Christianist” is--in my terms--a rightwing political agent/ideologue who strews biblicisms before him like desiccated blossoms and finds more of the Loving Carpenter in Leviticus and Deuteronomy than in the verses ascribed to Jesus himself. It’s a mystery.)

I intend to write more about Sullivan from time to time, but for now, I’ll say what I say about any other out gay or lesbian conservative. If the essence of conservatism is standing for traditional social and political values and advocating deliberate (glacial) change, essentially he is--they are--a glaring rebuke to it.

In his essence he contradicts its essence. We don’t come out gay or lesbian, or get married as gays or lesbians, especially having been traditional Christians since childhood, without drawing deeply on our own inner strengths and essential beliefs.

These, ipso facto, are not conservative. They are profoundly liberal. That is, they and the resulting actions profounding contractict both prevailing social mores and the conservative dictum regarding the pace of decorous, prudent change. Further, they reveal profound belief in the individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in our individual responsibility to act, alone and collectively, to remove any hostile feet from our necks. Despite how conservatives like to appropriate these values unto themselves, and denigrate liberals who exhibit them, these liberal values are enshrined in our Constitution. That anyone so boldly espousing them can identify as "conservative" is a mystery.

Nevertheness, despite our differences, I wish to Andrew and his love what I wish to those of us who married at the San Francisco City Hall in February, 2004 -- I'm thinking now of course of CJ and me, and especially of Keith and Andreas, for reasons they'll understand: the happiest of weddings and honeymoons, a life of unfolding wonder, generosity, courage, and kindness, and lasting joy in each other.

And a safe return home and to the blogosphere.