"I do" undoes California

During the recent Super Tuesday election here in California, voters were asked to cast their ballots on a proposition measure that is quite short: Only marriage between a man and a woman is recognized as valid in the state of California. It passed.

Now, it's obvious to me that this proposition has some type of relationship to the gay and lesbian communities of California and the rest of the United States. Throughout the publicity prior to the election, the nature of that relationship was debated. Was this proposition homophobic? or just supporting family values? Is there some type of imminent threat posed by gay or lesbian marriages? Or are voters simply closing a loophole so that if some other state decides to allow same sex-marriages, California won't automatically have to do so?

It seems to be a loophole-fix, and yet can you imagine what it would be like to be married in one place and not in another? I know that many rules about property rights and divorce and so on vary from state to state, but few of the variations affect any aspect of the marriage so fundamental as the actual committment that it is based on. Another interesting bit of background is that any danger posed by this loophole is mostly theoretical. Currently, no state in the Union allows same sex-marriage, although over 30 states have passed measures similar to this Proposition 22 in California. Running scared before the imagined invasion?

An analogy pops into my head with what it must be like for a woman from the US or Europe who marries a man from an extremely Islamic state, and they relocate there. Various rights that she took as inalienable are suddenly denied her in the new context, like making decisions about what to wear and when to go outside, where and if to work, and whether to put up with emotional or physical abuse. I don't know if anyone has done a sociology study on it, but I would imagine that the social and civil rights of the location that a relationship occurs in is an important, if usually unnoticed because it seldom changes drastically, aspect of the nature of the relationship. Marriage is a commitment to each other witnessed by the surrounding community, and if the mores of the community change, the experience of the marriage partners will change, too. I am sure there is a sense of betrayal.

Advocates of Proposition 22 pointed out that they feel that marriage IS something between a man and a woman, and they didn't want other relationships to be called "marriage" thus diluting the power of the idea of it, and giving kids the wrong message. They were generally careful to set the debate not in terms of taking anything away from same-sex couples, but rather cementing the law to reflect how the majority of people already felt about it. But to me it's obvious that this is veiled homophobia - fear of people conducting same-sex relationships. Without that fear, voters would have been happy that the loophole existed.

Now I don't automatically approve of every arrangement or behavior that any same-sex couple may do. But that's just the point: we shouldn't take a diverse group of people from a variety of economic and educational backgrounds, each with their own social history, and judge them based on the fact that technically the label of homosexual can apply to them. For one, the gay men I've known have been distinctly different in character from the lesbians I've known, and that shouldn't really be a surprise. In our society, even though some might argue whether its a good idea, no one can argue that boys and girls are brought up the same way. These boys and girls grow up to be the people who love each other as adults. Whether in heterosexual or homosexual couples, they bring their social conditioning with them.

Which brings me to another point about Prop. 22. Although it's proponents focussed strongly on only the word "marriage," it was clear to me that for each person who voted Yes, behind the word "marriage" was a clear notion of what they felt a marriage should be. When voting to "protect marriage, " voters were happily legislating their image of marriage, whether their vision included commitment, children, or whatever it included that they assumed would be missing from a same-sex marriage.

So here's my protest. First, I think it is important that any religious ideas about what marriage should be are maintained and advocated through means separate from a civil proposition. Separation of church and state and all that. Secondly, it's not fair to have the burden of disapproval fall on one group of people who can be singled out based on the sex of the person they love. There are certainly plenty of heterosexual relationships out there that dilute the notion marriage and do a rotten job of creating a good family household. Why not have sanctions against these people using the term "marriage" to describe their relationship? Because it's too difficult to find a label that would apply to them all, isn't it? One's sex is a pretty basic label, and in this proposition, the ease of use of the label is used to obliterate all of the variety of values and behaviors exhibited in same-sex relationships.

But thirdly and finally, I want to point out that we have all grown up with the image of marriage as the ultimate expression of commitment and respectful love in our society. All of us. So when California voters decide that it's important to close loopholes that might have allowed same-sex couples to create or continue this ultimate expression of respectful love and commitment, they also provide one more disincentive to same-sex couples to create the kinds of loving, committed relationships and responsible child-raising households that many of these voters hold as ideal. When a group of people is consistently denied the approval or benefits of the larger society, what incentive do they have to behave in ways that the larger society approves of? If good marriages and good children-loving households are important for the greater good of society, what incentive do same-sex couples have to be good members of society without the right to express their commitment to love each other through a marriage ceremony as we've all been brought up to do?

Which do these voters value more, their fear of homosexuals or their images of positive commitment in loving relationships that contribute healthy happy children to society? On Super Tuesday, the majority of voters indicated that their fear of homosexuals, based on whatever images they have of "average" homosexual behavior, rules their ballot. If I assume they knew what they were voting on, I have to weep for the state of civil rights in this state.