As a sixty-seven year old heterosexual mother of three and grandmother of five, who's been married to her first husband for 44 years, I don't have a personal stake in the same-gender marriage controversy.
Well, that's not entirely correct. My first, and only, pediatrician, who supervised the removal of my tonsils in 1946 had a partner, an architect, male like himself, with whom he shared his entire life. And my "aunts," my mother's best friends, who looked after me better than she ever did, were a couple until they died.
Of course, these people lived in Europe and really didn't have to worry about whether they could visit when their loved ones were hospitalized. And, their health care didn't depend on where or whether any of them worked.
So, what's my beef?
I had actually almost decided not to bother weighing in on the debacle in California with Proposition 8, if only because a state constitution, which outlines how government is supposed to be organized, isn't really the place to stick definitions. We have dictionaries for that and I'm quite certain that, eventually, this mis-use of the constitution will be rectified.
But then Jeff Jacoby comes along in my Boston Globe, renders his opinion on the kerfuffle and demonstrates himself to be as un-informed as most other pundits. He presumes to refute the suggestion that California blacks should have known better than to support the definition because their own civil rights were once denied by arguing that having one's contractual commitments recognized in the law is not a civil right.
Well, let's see. The civil rights once denied to black Americans included the right to register as a voter, the right to cast a ballot, the right to use numerous public facilities, the right to get a fair hearing in court, the right to send their children to an integrated public school, and the right to equal opportunity in housing and employment. Have gay people been denied any of these rights? Have they been forced to sit in the back of buses? Confined to segregated neighborhoods? Barred from serving on juries? Subjected to systematic economic exploitation?
While it's perhaps telling that Jacoby overlooks the right of every citizen to participate in governing the nation by holding public office, what's more instructive about his catalog of rights is that what each of the specifics he mentions exemplifies is that the agents of government failed in their duty to treat each and every citizen equally. And that's the bottom line. If the agents of government are empowered to provide legal recognition to domestic partnerships (not a universal mandate considering the survival of such relationships being recognized as "common law"), then, under the provisions of the United States Constitution, they must do so equitably, without discriminating on the basis of irrelevant characteristics.
What would be a relevant characteristic? Well, take the issuance of a driver's license as an example. If a person applying for a license demonstrates an inability to drive a vehicle safely, then that would be a relevant characteristic on which to base a denial. Not being a United States citizen would not be. Similarly, gender is not relevant to one's ability to honor one's commitments.
That the United States Constitution and the various states' variants aim to address the behavior of government agents in the performance of their duties, not the obligations or responsibilities of citizens, doesn't seem to register with most conservatives--as if they can't tell the difference between the shop manual and the driver's manual for their cars.
While it's clear to me that what the proponents of "traditional marriage" are really after is the official sanction of an unequal relationship--one in which one gender is dominant and the other is "naturally" subservient and OBEDIENT--and a concomitant refutation of human equality in all socially approved and supported relationships, my reason for addressing this matter lies elsewhere.
You see, I see a relationship between the controversy over the meaning of citizenship and the meaning of marriage. In both cases, a rather large segment of the American public seems to be under the impression that citizenship and the marriage certificate is an indication of superior status. And that's why they think it's appropriate to deny such certification to people whom they consider demonstrably inferior.
But, that's where I would argue, they've gone wrong. Neither citizenship nor marriage has anything to do with social standing or status. What they have to do with is the assumption of additional obligations and responsibilities--specifically towards other people. Just as the behavior or benefits of an individual aren't materially improved by entering into a contract that pledges loyalty and support for one specific individual, other than oneself, citizenship represents a commitment to participate in the obligations of governing--voting, serving on juries, assessing the law and enforcing its provisions, funding communal initiatives (paying taxes) and holding official positions--not a more favorable condition.
Which raises the question why someone would want to prevent anyone from subscribing to and meeting their domestic and civic responsibilities and obligations? And the answer would seem to be that the objectors don't really know what they're about. They misunderstand that it's socially useful to recognize private commitments and they misunderstand that society is better off when there are more contributors (citizens) and fewer free-loaders.
Now, while history tells us that we can obviously accommodate a rather large population of free-loaders, that doesn't answer the question why we should. If people intend to live here until the day they die, why shouldn't they contribute their fair share, take out citizenship and, at a minimum, vote?
How to account for this misunderstanding? I suspect it's just part and parcel of the conservative desire to identify some characteristic, any characteristic, that makes some people exceptional and superior to everyone else.
That exceptionalism is something that can be achieved by excelling in the performance of some task or skill seems to have eluded their consideration. Perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr. could have made it clearer that "the content of their character" was a reference to individual behavior, as opposed to how people are perceived by their neighbors. Perhaps then there would be less confusion about the difference between a meritocracy and an aristocracy--between accomplishment and high social status assigned at birth.
Let us hope that's something Barack Obama will be able to clarify.