Proposition 8: A Response
On Tuesday, 4 November 2008, I, along with millions of other American citizens, entered a recognised polling place, a cast my vote.
For the people of California, they were asked whether or not they, as a people, should amend their constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. This was a response to the California Supreme Court's 4-3 decision that "same-sex marriage" was protected under their constitution. This ballot question was known as Proposition 8.
Before I continue, I wish to affirm one very important fact: I do not condone nor tolerate bigotry or discrimination against others.
A member of my family asked me to defend my support of Proposition 8. More importantly, he asked me to explain how the ability of homosexual couples to marry posed as a "threat" to my own marriage. I promised that I would do so by Friday. As it is Thursday night and my dearly beloved is at work for another hour, I decided that now would be a good time to give him my response. In doing so, I will draw from comments posted in the LDS Newsroom. Any quotations that follow will be taken from the Newsroom, unless otherwise noted. I will also share many of my own thoughts on this subject. I will also try to keep this relatively brief.
Many states, including California, already allow for civil unions, which are legally binding agreements between adults that offer many of the same legal protections and rights offered to married couples. These include, among other things, "hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights". In light of this, I must first ask this question: what does marriage mean?
Marriage is not simply a contractual agreement between adults. Marriage is a divine institution, ordained by God, for the primary purpose of binding individuals together through the eternities. These individuals are, first and foremost, a husband and wife, but then, if possible, their children as well. I know that there are some couples that are not able to have children, but this does not diminish the primary role of marriage. Marriage is the first step toward building the fundamental unit of society, which is the family. That family may be just two people: a man and a woman. Often, it includes children, either those born to the couple through natural processes or those brought into the family through legal adoption. Regardless, marriage is not simply a matter of cohabitation. Nor is it simply a matter of expressing love and commitment, although these are surely important factors.
I am a supporter of civil unions for homosexual couples. I am a supporter of governments no longer using the term "marriage" at all. In other words, I hope that someday we will no longer here the words "legally and lawfully" attached to the term marriage. I believe that marriage is a religious rite ordained by God. Governments should not be involved in the institution of marriage at all. But as long as they are, I believe that governments must not redefine what marriage is. Marriage is the union of one man with one woman.
So how does the notion of same-sex marriage threaten my own marriage? This is the root of the question that has been asked of me. After doing much research, I have concluded that the most important threat is to my religious liberties. I refer you again to the LDS Newsroom:
"The prospect of same-sex marriage has already spawned legal collisions with the rights of free speech and of action based on religious beliefs. For example, advocates and government officials in certain states already are challenging the long-held right of religious adoption agencies to follow their religious beliefs and only place children in homes with both a mother and a father. As a result, Catholic Charities in Boston has stopped offering adoption services."
Gretchen and I have already discussed the possibility of adopting children. While we are not currently planning on doing so, we have discussed it as something that we may wish to consider one day. If we do decide to adopt, I would prefer to adopt through LDS Family Services. As has been indicated above, such services may not be possible if government officials decide to challenge the rights of a religious organisation to place limits on those who wish to adopt through them. This would be a direct threat to me and my family.
There are other reasons. Many are societal. Some are professional. As I said before, I don't want this to be too lengthy, and I am sure it is long enough already. But I wish to simply end by encouraging you to peruse the article posted at the LDS Newsroom, as well as the related articles. When the day comes that Illinoisans are confronted with this question, I will support Proposition 8.
Others may disagree. I support your right to do so. Opposition is not only a part of life, it is critical aspect of any democratic society. To quote one of my favourite movies about politics: " You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."
Comments
The gist of it is that man-woman marriages form a culture for raising children, and even if a particular couple may be unable to have children, it still contributes to that culture by sending a message through the symbol of marriage that this is the ideal for raising children. So it's not so much a question of "how is gay marriage a threat to your own marriage" as it is a question of "how is gay marriage a threat to the institution of marriage for future generations".
Having said that, I'm also well aware that tough political questions often require compromise. It could be that at some point in the future, a compromise may be necessary that would involve removing government recognition of marriage entirely. I don't think our church would be in favor of such a solution, but we'd be able to get by. In countries like Brazil, for instance, temple marriages are not recognized by the government and so young Brazilian Mormon couples have to do a legal marriage ceremony before they can receive their temple marriage.
I think the issue is with that "many" which varies from "a few" to "most". As it's handled state-wide in your country this means that couples who have entered into a civil union are not protected by federal laws involving marriage. A civil union where one party was foreign, would not grant right of abode in the USA, at least according to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union
Not a recent post, but recently linked to from a very good Blog I read: http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/10/a_modest_solution_to_gay_marri.php
Wilkins Suggests, as you have, that a Marriage have no legal status.
"Instead, recognise that adult human beings are entitled to make whatever exclusive relationships they like, whether it is based on sex or just friendship. So let anyone, in or out of marriage, enter into an Exclusive Civil Partnership, irrespective of sex, gender or fashion sense."
"As just one example of how children will be adversely affected, the establishment of same-sex marriage as a civil right will inevitably require mandatory changes in school curricula. When the state says that same-sex unions are equivalent to heterosexual marriages, the curriculum of public schools will have to support this claim. Beginning with elementary school, children will be taught that marriage can be defined as a relation between any two adults and that consensual sexual relations are morally neutral. Classroom instruction on sex education in secondary schools can be expected to equate homosexual intimacy with heterosexual relations. These developments will create serious clashes between the agenda of the secular school system and the right of parents to teach their children traditional standards of morality."
I believe that this is a ridiculous stance. I believe that these "expectations" are erroneous. I grew up in a society where only a small percentage of my friends parents were married to each other (some were not married at all, some had been married and were now no longer married, some had been married and were now no longer married and some were married to other people)... and even in that very way-out school in that very way-out town: I still was taught and learned that it was 'ideal' to have a family that consisted of simply parents and children living together. That was still a 'normal' family. I can only think of one friend that I had who had that 'normal' family and now that I think on it I remember that she actually had older half siblings from her father's first marriage. So nobody had that and it was still taught and recognised as the ideal.
We can't pretend that every family fits the mould of the 'ideal' family, or force those that don't fit to comply with 'norms'. And recognising that some people don't comply does not dissolve those norms or mean that nobody recognises that two people of opposite genders make babies 100% eaiser than any other people and that if they commit to forming a family unit and raising their children together, life is a lot less complicated for those people. It means that we can treat those people who don't fit with respect, instead of humiliation.
After I left the school I mentioned above, I moved states to a very different area... where the fact that my family did not fit within the 'norms' meant that my friends did not know how to address my mother (as they couldn't call her Mrs the-lastname-i-had-then): I told them that they should call my mother Ms the-lastname-that-she-had-then.
It's simply scaremongering to suggest that legal recognition of same-sex relationships will mean that schoolteachers have to teach that one-man-one-woman relationships aren't normal/what most people aspire to. Most people do enter into one-man-one-woman relationships, and most people will continue to enter into one-man-one-woman relationships: recognising that not everybody does does not threaten that. If parents and/or religious institutions want to teach that alternative family arrangements are bad or wrong, then that saddens me. I do not believe that secular institutions ought to teach so. Such arrangements are, by their nature, going to be unusual, in the environment of a primary school. The number of same-sex parents is always likely to be small relative to opposite-sex parents for obvious reasons. Recognition of same-sex relationships can surely have no impact on children of opposite-sex relationships. What it can do is have impact on children in families with same-sex parents and make sure that the law recognises reality for these families which is important, particularly for medical decisions or in the case of the death or incapacitation of a biological parent - these parents cannot gain the same status as a step-parent normally would, for example.
Apart from the obvious differences in our religious beliefs, I think this is the crux of our difference in opinion about these laws. You/The LDS Church see recognition of same-sex marriage as changing the definition of marriage and making changes to societies norms.
I believe that society is as it is, and (regardless of whether you think it should be changed or not) that denying families (of two or more people) legal rights that other families have access to purely on the basis of the gender of the people in them is monstrous, and that recognition of reality has no impact on anyone else.
Your main "threat" that you have mentioned is something that I see as only being indirectly related as it is an issue of religious freedom. I understand your point here but I am strongly of the opinion that church-support of proposition-8 is absolutely the wrong tactic to take. The problem is that the church doesn't want the state to tell the church who they should consider as prospective parents and that that shouldn't be any of the state's business. Surely, then, the solution is not for the church to tell the state what sort of parents are allowed to exist - that might be a short term solution but only invites greater blurring of church/state boundaries.
Something I find interesting is that some of your views definitely reflect the difference in our respective governments.
You would think that a nation that holds the freedom of religion as one of the first rights granted to its citizens would be the nation that is most willing to allow its citizens the free exercise of religion. However, the sad fact is that the United States' federal government, as well as individual State governments, have an awful track record of restricting this freedom in the name of "tolerance" and "equality". Basically, any church that operates on a very small scale can do whatever it wants. Any church that operates on a large scale, and is involved in many different social programs (such as adoption) finds itself constantly being challenged. There is a reason why large churches in America have large legal departments.
I think that this issue would not even exist in most other democratic nations. The people there have figured out a way of allowing Church to co-exist within the State. Here, it is as if Church and State are enemies.
"I believe that society is as it is, and (regardless of whether you think it should be changed or not) that denying families (of two or more people) legal rights that other families have access to purely on the basis of the gender of the people in them is monstrous, and that recognition of reality has no impact on anyone else."
I think we need to recognise, once again, that in no way does Proposition 8 suggest that these families/couples should be denied the legal rights that other families have. I totally agree that denying such rights is monstrous, and that is why I am a full supporter of allowing for unions that provide these rights. I am simply opposed to government definitions of marriage that have already been seen as inroads for restricting religious liberties. It is no imaginary circumstance that Catholic Charities were forced to close their adoption facilities in Massachusetts as a direct result of legal rulings regarding same-sex marriage. I think that the only reason the LDS church has thus far been able to keep their adoption programs, run by LDS Family Services, open is because of the specific requirements (anybody can place a child for adoption through LDS Family Services, but the agency only works with adoptive parents who are members of the LDS church and meet specific requirements).
Ultimately, I agree with the notion that the United States needs to stop using the concept of "legal marriages" and move on to "legal unions". It may be splitting hairs, but, to most of the people in America, these hairs are very, very important.
I think we may ultimately be best served by the model of marriage in Ghana where an individual must marry before the state, the tribe, and in the temple, each sphere of authority over the relationship acting independently of the other in its sanction. Definitely, the government has no right to decide who enters the temple, but then the sealing ordinance could stand independently of civil authority and be viable as a marriage contract acceptable to society if not the law, no matter who or what civil authority chooses to marry.
Having said this, however, my primary contention is that same-sex marriage does not harm the institution of marriage because it is in fact itself enhanced by inclusion within the institution of marriage. On the contrary, the potential threat coming from same-sex marriage seems to be directly only toward the institution of the church and the sanctity of its edifices, which would be defiled if forced to host a same-sex union.
What harms the institution of marriage is the decline in respect for the contract binding two individuals into a relationship. This observation makes me wonder why that piece you mention from the LDS news room goes out of its way to say marriage is more than a contract, it is an institution. Pish posh. The contract IS the institution!!! The only difference between the temple marriage and the civil marriage is that God (and maybe, in the end, if we're really good and really lucky, the holy spirit of promise) is ostensibly one of the co-signers.
The same-sex marriage issue--leaving aside the separation of church and state issue--is probably more red herring than anything else, because in my opinion the real threat to the institution of marriage (aka the contract) is that people who choose to enter the contract fail to honor it fully, or they choose to enter into the relationship without a socially or divinely sanctioned contract.
Ultimately, I think that the federal government here does need to step in and set some definite standards. I am all for states' rights, but there are times when the purpose of the federal government is obvious.