The appeal on the constitutional gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, has finally reached the California Supreme Court. This Thursday morning arguments will be delivered for and against this state amendment which passed last November with 52% of voters in favor of Prop. 8.
Typically when I sound off on something I’m quick to pick a side, talk a little shit, and snarkily rip an issue to shreds, but as a queer person living in this country, this particular issue is a bit more delicate for me. Honestly, I don’t even think this should be an issue. The government shouldn’t have involvement in any marriage, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual. I’ve always seen marriage as a religious institution. The right to marry should fall to churches and communities. However, this isn’t how it is. To receive all the rights and benefits of marriage, you do need the states stamp of approval. So, for me personally, that’s pretty much what it boils down to. Rights.
A lot of people seem to be hung up on the word itself. Many folks don’t think that word should apply to homosexuals, because in their eyes it debases the sanctity of marriage. However, some of those people are also comfortable with extending rights to homosexuals, but under the different vise of “domestic partnership,” which is fine with me. Marriage is just a word to me, but rights are rights. If my partner of five years is in the hospital, should I have a legal guarantee that I will be allowed to be with him during such a crucial time of need?
So, where exactly am I taking this? Do I support Prop. 8 or not?
No. I can’t say that I do. The Existence of Proposition 8 has rendered many legal rights of a minority group null, after legislation had existed prior to protect this minority group, creating a permanent ban on them, at least until it’s overturned if that even happens. As an American Citizen, I feel I should be guaranteed certain unalienable rights, marriage, domestic faggotry, whatever you want to call it, I couldn’t care less. If I leave all of my worldly property to my partner in my last will and testament, my family shouldn’t be able to swoop in and have at it because we were gay and he has no right to it. In my eyes, this is total bullshit. I don’t need to walk down an aisle, or declare anything before my God. I just want some guarantees in writing. That’s it. Fuck marriage, seriously. I don’t need marriage. Just some rights PLZ. No religious connotations necessary.
In a world where homosexuals are bought and sold for entertainment and can move some serious dollar, with some seriously crappy “Homo for the Straight Bro” and abominations like Will and Grace in our media, why can’t we claim our partners as dependents when we file taxes? My deduction is null because I’m a fag? Not to relentlessly repeat myself, but I’m also going to have to say that’s pretty much bullshit.
As a gay man, I tend to keep my sexuality out of my politics, much like I do religion. I just think it’s good manners. In fact, gay marriage isn’t really even an issue I care about a whole lot. It just isn’t a priority. I got bigger fish to fry. The only thing that kind of gets me, is the idea of creating legislation to enable the decline and banning of rights, that many people on a national level didn’t even have access to in the first place. Ohio, my home state, passed a ban on gay marriage about 5 years ago (it was later repealed for being unconstitutional), but the thing was, it’s not like I could file for bridal registry before the ban existed. It even affected straight people who were unmarried in negative ways. It was pretty much just a snub on gay people from the Christian right here in Ohio. Any legislation that exists for the sole purpose of declining rights just seems unconstitutional to me, and just plain un-American. I cannot support its existence.
Gay visibility and acceptance in mainstream society has grown tremendously in the last decade. There’s even a gay channel on cable now with crappy exploitative shows. How much further will it go? Is this the wall? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Your beloved libertarian homo,
Justin R. Stanley
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You go, grrrl!
My additional beef with this issue is that most states have a 50/50 cutoff for constitutional amendments. Of those states that passed marriage bans in November, only Florida required more than half approval (60%, as i recall). Considering the rather extensive use of constitutions to protect the few from the many, and keeping in mind the extreme difficulty of modifying our national constitution, it always shocks me that, for instance, men could outvote women 51 to 49 and forbid them citizenship. People who try to put the Christian Bible into their constitution seem to miss the fact that the constitution is the Bible of government. And as the Bible is supposed to contain God’s revelations to his prophets, so should our constitutions contain society’s revelations to us - truths that are evident to everyone, not something someone managed to shove through an election by brute force and luck.
But really, it’s all about control. And, just like religion, government is a tool for people who don’t give a shit about the rest of us. So while i hope the gays of California get what they deserve on thursday, i’m far from ready to celebrate.
Patrick said this on
Mar 03 09 at
1:49 pm
As far as I understand the Constitution, it contains two sets of statements: positive statements, ensuring the rights of the people (a group noun that was clearly intended to read “each individual citizen”), and negative statements, restricting the rights of the government (a group noun that was clearly intended to read “that group of people who, by election, appointment, or employment, do the work of one of the three branches of the national government as enumerated herein”). In most instances, when someone uses the term “unconstitutional”, it is used to refer to something that breaks one of the rules [or established interpretations of the rules] written down in the Constitution. I have always believed that this is a misuse of the term (more appropriate would be ‘anti-constitutional’ or ‘contra-constitutional’). The term “unconstitutional” should apply to any action or legislation which contradicts the positive/negative axiom. Thus an organization such as the FCC isn’t unconstitutional, it’s contra-constitutional – it acts and regulates in such a way that runs contrary to specifically enumerated rights. On the other hand, any regulation which denies rights (all those “reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,” ala Amendment X) is unconstitutional – such statements must, by definition, use a grammar that is alien to the Constitution. Just as my speech-writing instructor used to tell us that inanimate objects cannot take possessives (it must be “the door of the house”, not “the house’s door”), in the syntax of the Constitution the people cannot be denied rights. Indeed, even most of the Bill of Rights is written in a way that doesn’t “grant” rights to the people but that denies the government any power to abridge, ignore, or even enforce rights. (To the Founders, the rights in question were natural, not subject to being given or taken away by government or any other entity.)
I am not an intentionalist (if anything, I hope my above reading reflects my structuralist view), but I can’t help but think about how the writers of the Constitution, so recently free of the Church of England’s shadow, would react to what is happening now. To think that one group, no matter how large, is using their interpretation of one passage of one book (while so frequently ignoring so many other and frequently repeated admonitions, such as “judge not” and “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”) is ignoring the syntax (what they would call ‘the spirit’) of the document that made their very right to worship real to the world – well, like you said: there may be bigger fish to fry right now, but homosexual or not, we all need to worry about this.
Richard Paez said this on
May 06 09 at
4:58 am
