Gay marriage on the line again

[Guest StuCotts]

It looks like a hard-fought battle. Hope rules.

In the worst of cases, the pro-gay marriage forces will lose again. They will at least have fought the good fight, and removed all doubt about how stubborn the opposition is that still needs to be overcome. Cold consolation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/us/28maine.html?hpw

[caeron]

I gave generously to the No on 1 campaign, I hope others have as well.

[Guest StuCotts]

The antis won. The dehumanization trend continues.

[caeron]

I take some comfort in the fact that the vote was close, and on an issue like this, the right is going to get better turn out than we do.

Still, it is a disappointment. So close to getting voter support.

[Guest Conway]

It may well be time for the gay marriage movement to take a more pragmatic approach. Each time we lose one of these major national battles as it relates to gay marriage, it becomes more likely that gay marriage is going to become the equivalent of the Equal Rights Amendment which failed miserably in the 70s and early 80s versus the equivalent of the voting rights act.

Our history in fighting for rights for gay men and women effectively is approaching middle age. Yet our approach is still very much centered in activities and ideas that are better suited for a movement in its adolescent stage. We originally approached our claim of rights with a militant radical approach which was very successful up to and through the AIDS crisis in the 80s and early 90s.

Now that we are a successfully recognized social economic group, we need to change our approach from one of adolescence to one that is more mature and one that recognizes our more widely accepted role in the places where we live.

To me, the biggest problem with gay marriage being accepted is the semantic of the word marriage. This fight, at least to me, is not about the institution of marriage. It is about affording committed gay couples the same rights that their straight counterparts have.

Historically, it has been shown that, here in the US, gay partnership initiatives have been far more accepted when the word marriage is not is not used to describe them.

Let's be honest, marriage is an institution of the breeders. They are threatened more by our encroachment on their institution than they are by the rights of permanent partnership that we seek.

We're in a precarious position right now where the future of gay marriage, and for all intents and purposes, gay partnership rights are concerned. There is a good chance that one of these ballot initiatives will work its way through the civil courts and to the Supreme Court over the next few years. If a Roberts court rules in favor of the ballot or legislative initiatives that restrict partnership rights, we find ourselves backed irreversibly into a societal corner that we may never escape.

That would bring a certain finality to the movement's efforts which would be regrettable.

[JKane]

You make several good points, I've been thinking along these lines for a while myself...

But there are several problems with giving up the word Marriage.

The only way I could imagine this working would be to establish 'civil unions' for all, the gov't has no place in the religious institution of marriage... If you wan't the benefits, rights and responsibilities, you get a civil union. Your church wants to also call you married... that's it's business but it'd have no bearing on gov't or employment services. Nothing approaching that has ever been seriously proposed to my knowledge. What has been... Federal half-assed and state by state, doesn't seem much better than what we already have by consensus in all but the most backward of places.

To me there's a constitutional issue, and not the one most think. Even if we had the situation above and 'civil unions' were 100% equivalent to marriage now you're also telling churches they CAN'T have gay marriage. I'm guessing the Unitarians and several other sects would like to. But instead the federal government is heading towards ESTABLISHING that the wishes of the Mormons, Catholics, etc have precedence. Yeah, THE MORMONS get to tell everybody else what's acceptable in marriage... sound fucked up to anybody else?

And dismissing marriage as a 'breeder thing' seems counterproductive, to me one of the best justifications for gay marriage is the raising of families, entire families which don't deserve to be relegated to second-class status because of what some religious leaders say.

But I do agree that it's been pushed too hard and at the wrong times. It seems clear to me we've lost more than we've gained so far...

[caeron]

I understand the obsession with the word marriage, and the desire to win it all at once, but I'm more of Conway's school.

Get civil unions, and then just don't call them that. Call it marriage. You can take the word back by doing that.