Friday Gay Blogging

Yes, I realize it's Tuesday, but I was otherwise occupied. A few thoughts on marriage for this round.

From an article in the Morris County (NJ) Daily Record that discusses (not in much detail, I'm afraid) a report that NJ civil unions confer a "second class" status (whicih we all knew anyway):

A commission established to study same-sex civil unions in New Jersey has found in its first report that civil unions create a "second-class status" for gay couples rather than giving them equality. . . .

State lawmakers made New Jersey the third state to offer civil unions with a law adopted in 2006 in reaction to a state Supreme Court ruling that year that found gay couples were entitled to the same legal protections as married couples.

The civil union law sought to give gay couples those benefits -- but not the title of marriage. As a part of the same law, the review commission was created to look into whether it was working.

Gay rights advocates say the civil unions do not deliver and have pledged to push lawmakers to vote to allow gay marriage. Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would be willing to sign such a bill into law -- but doesn't want the issue to be taken up before the election.

The activists say that civil unions, in practice, do not offer the legal protections that marriage does. The commission largely agreed with them.

The commission held three public hearings last year where the majority of the testimony came from people who were in civil unions and said they were still not being treated the way married couples are by government agencies, employers and others.

For instance, the commission finds that many companies in the state that are self-insured, and therefore are regulated by federal rather than state law, refuse to provide health insurance to the partners of their employees.

While employees in Massachusetts could legally do the same thing, most do not, according to the report.

The commission also finds that many people in the state do not understand civil unions. "Civil union status is not clear to the general public," the report says, "which creates a second-class status."

The commission's report says the misunderstanding of civil unions makes it more difficult for a child to grow up in New Jersey with gay parents, or to be gay themselves.

And a slightly less recent essay by Steve Swayne at Independent Gay Forum on civil unions vs. marriage:

I’m deliberately avoiding the M-word here because for years now I’ve argued that we as a nation need to divorce the legal benefits of marriage from the religious connotations of the word. I’ve argued that civil unions need to be available to all. And the collective shrug seen in New Hampshire suggests that a move in that direction is possible, both on a statewide and on a federal level.

After all, most of us intuitively grasp the distinction between a license filed away in a musty vault somewhere and the moment enacted before witnesses where two people wed their lives to each other. The latter, not the former, constitutes marriage. The rest is paperwork.

I do not discount the symbolic important the M-word has for many in our world today, which is why I’m happy to report that people routinely refer to my partner and I (neither one of us likes the word “husband”) as married. The state cannot withhold the word or the ceremonial rites of marriage.

The legal rights of marriage, in contrast, are held exclusively by the state. Let’s keep prying those rights free from the word itself. One of the fastest ways we can do that is to elect a president who can help make this distinction clearer, who respects all couples for their intrinsic worth and sees their genuine need for the protection of their relationships that only the law can afford. And when the GOP nominee starts squawking about civil unions on the state and federal level, say: You had your chance to speak up in New Hampshire. It’s time for you now and forever to hold your peace.

On the whole, it seems as though the opponents of equal rights are losing ground as people come to see that, by George!, gay couples are recognized and the world hasn't ended. A comment, though, about terminology seems in order here:

Both Swayne and the Daily Record article note the reluctance to apply the word "marriage" to same-sex relationships, and Swayne specifically mentions the "regligious connotations" of the term. The "religious" meaning of "marriage" has become a meme in this discourse, which has always bothered me, which I largely ascribe to the fact that, for the Christian church, marriage wasn't even considered worthy of being a sacrament until the twelfth century (or the early thirteenth, I forget which), and it has always been much more about property than any sort of "holy union" (of course, some people think that combining your property is about as holy as it gets). And also consider that, although I believe all states automatically grant clergy the right to perform marriages, they are acting as agents of the state and not as religious officials in that capacity. Another of those mistaken courtesies that we extend religion in this country.

And, as I was doing some bleary-eyed surfing over the weekend (trust me, it was merely bleeding off nervous energy -- I wasn't really tracking very well), I ran across a key factoid: the religious word for marriage is "matrimony." It always has been. Matrimony has always been a word reserved for the religious institution, while marriage has been the word used to designate the social and legal institution.

I think we need to take that word back, because no matter the religious context of your relationship, it is the social and legal context that is critically important.

A couple of final comments, regarding backlash in New Jersey:

Opponents of gay marriage have been pushing back in New Jersey. Roman Catholic churches around the state have been planning special prayers on marriage for today. A major aim is to promote marriage as being between only a man and a woman.

Um -- sounds like someone wanting more than their share to me.

A conservative Princeton-based group, the National Organization for Marriage, has aired radio commercials that say allowing gay marriage would undermine some religious teachings that homosexuality is wrong.

And what's wrong with that? If your religion has nasty things in it, perhaps you need to find a new religion.