If Gays Can Marry, I Just Might Cancel My
Wedding: Ann Woolner
Commentary by Ann Woolner
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- As a heterosexual engaged to be married,
I listened closely this week as California lawyers argued over
whether same-sex couples should be allowed to wed.
What happens to me if a court as powerful as the California
Supreme Court says that would be just fine?
``It would undermine opposite-sex marriage,'' Mathew Staver, a lawyer for Campaign for
California Families, told the justices.
Well, that's just great. I'm old enough to be a mother of a
bride, and just as I'm about to get a marriage license for the
first -- and only -- time in my life, its status is poised to
plunge.
So, should I call off the engagement?
I mean, how special can marriage licenses be if courts let
homosexuals have them?
Famous heteros have already battered the institution. Zsa Zsa Gabor pledged lifelong partnership nine
times, and Britney Spears did so for a marriage annulled
two days later.
Some folks among the huddled masses longing to breathe free snag phony
marriages to get U.S. citizenship. In Las Vegas, you can book a
Graveyard Wedding featuring black roses, haunting music and
``gruesome video.''
One chapel alone offers nine kinds of Elvis-themed weddings.
Remind me again, please, why gay people get blamed for trashing
traditional marriage.
I'm wondering how Elizabeth Taylor's eight marriages each won a
government stamp of approval denied the 55-year partnership between
the two women, both in their 80s, who are lead plaintiffs in the
California case.
Longer Commitment
Their commitment has already lasted longer than most marriages.
Given my age and that of my groom's, surely death will do us part,
too, long before 55 years pass.
So how did government get involved in regulating this most-
intimate aspect of American life? It's all about protecting babies,
according to lawyers for religious conservatives defending the
state's same-sex marriage ban.
``This court as early as 1850 was talking about the primary
purpose of marriage being procreation and the raising of the
children of the marriage,'' said Glen Lavy, a lawyer for the
Alliance Defense Fund.
Every adult knows it takes a man and a woman, or parts thereof,
to make a baby. It also takes two bodies physically able to
accomplish the job.
Having Children
``Should we have marriage laws that say you can't marry unless
you are prepared to have children or are capable of having
children,'' Justice Carol Corrigan of the California Supreme Court
asked.
(Hello, pastry chef? Hold that wedding cake.)
But that can't be right. If child-rearing were the most-
important aspect of marriage, then my sure-to-be childless
relationship wouldn't qualify, heterosexuality notwithstanding.
Plaintiff Karen Shain's lesbian union would qualify as marriage, on
the other hand, because she has raised a child with her
partner.
The law doesn't read that way. If the state were indeed
concerned about children, it would give the children of gay couples
the stability conveyed by a stamp of legitimacy on their parents'
unions.
``The name `marriage' matters,'' argued Therese Stewart, a lawyer for the city of San
Francisco, which supports same-sex unions. ``It communicates
something everyone can understand. It communicates loyalty and
intimacy and commitment.''
Domestic Partnership
She didn't buy the state's argument that California's domestic
partnership law puts gay couples on equal footing with straight,
married couples.
Perhaps what is needed is an upgrade in status for domestic
partnership so that it reaches equality with the declining prestige
of marriage.
Maybe I can help by calling off the marriage and becoming
domestically partnered instead, thus elevating the status of those
poor souls who fell in love with someone of their own sex.
If more heterosexuals did that, wouldn't the standing of all
domestic partners rise?
(Hello, honey. About that marriage license?)
Or here's another idea. Let religions carry the burden of
deciding who can marry whom. Some rabbis won't marry Jew to
Christian. Catholic and Episcopalian priests, in the main, say no
to the previously married, or at least make it very difficult to
try again.
Proper Role
This is a proper role for religion, which you can take or leave.
But the state has no business setting those boundaries. This is why
even the most-conservative states in the buckle of the Bible belt
grant marriage to interfaith couples, even to divorced men and
women.
In the same way, the state has no business denying marriage to
same-sex couples, no matter how committed, while granting it to
hetero couples, even if they are taking a boozy break from the Reno
slot machines.
Let religion marry people in whatever manner honors the faith.
Let atheists and anyone else write their own vows, design their own
ceremonies and deny marriage to whomever they wish.
The state's only role is granting legal status to couples,
making sure that both parties are of age and otherwise unmarried.
Call it a civil union or a domestic partnership. But grant it to
interfaith couples, the previously married, to same- sex couples,
just as it is granted to first-timers of the opposite sex and same
religion. Or no religion.
In the meantime, I'll marry a man that some religions say I
shouldn't, fully licensed by the state.
When I do, I will wish that those now barred from marrying the
partners they love will be allowed one day to honor matrimony by
joining it.
(Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg news columnist. The
opinions expressed are her own.)