Originally posted 05/23/07
Esteban and Maria cross the U.S. – Mexico border illegally, find housing and work and have a baby. The baby is automatically an American citizen per the Fourteenth Amendment and has all the rights and entitlements of every American citizen. This past week progress was seemingly made on an immigration bill that would also give Esteban and Maria all the rights of native born citizens in time. Education, health care, government entitlements, voting privileges, rights of survivorship and rights of parents to make decisions for their child.
Greg and Mike live down the street from us. They are both born in the United States, as were several generations on each side. They share a home and many other assets, plus share expenses and the cost of living. They both work and are involved in the community. Greg and Mike however are denied many of the rights that Esteban and Maria eventually will have under the proposed immigration bill in the Senate. While they share their lives in the same manner that my wife Leslie and I do, they are denied many of the rights and privileges we enjoy. Why? Because “gay marriage” in many social and political sections of our country is a worse term or thought than “illegal immigration”.
There are those who use biblical arguments against gay marriage, those who prejudicial arguments against gay marriage and those who try to use legal terminology against gay marriage. There are movements to have states legally define “marriage” as a union only between a man and a woman—some even calling for a Constitutional Amendment. Fine, while I disagree, in some ways I get their stance and position from their ideological background. I would like to see us get away from the parsing of the word “marriage” and into defining and allowing rights of a union, more specifically same sex unions. This, to me, has been the stumbling block in the issue for the gay rights activists who have pushed the issue of equal rights of gay relationships to those of heterosexual relationships sanctioned by law as “marriage”. By the insistence of legally allowing “marriage” to sanctify the laws and rights of the state and federal governments, the gay rights advocates are beating the hornets’ nests of the social and religious conservatives. Understanding that labels are important and create how things are interpreted, my advice is start smart and accrue all the rights for gay couples that wish to be married but call for civil unions, or legal tenancy, or lawful couple, or some term that can define the relationship without the ire raising “marriage” word—but more importantly create and protect the same rights. Compromise, give up the word to define the act to get the benefits of the act.
If Greg and Mike adopt a child, which one is going to be allowed to make decisions on health care, education and trusteeship of assets should something happen? If something terrible were to happen to Mike will Greg be allowed to instruct the doctors on care and sign off on crucial medical decisions? What about inheritance and beneficiary orders of retirement accounts and social security in a household that sees decades of shared income and investment and debt management? Why should Greg and Mike, and not Esteban and Maria, have to make protracted and expensive legal arrangements to benefit from the same rights that many of the children they grew up with in Long Beach, or their college classmates, or their co-workers enjoy just because they are gay?
Homosexuals are in our places of work, our places of worship and our places of war—just don’t ask. They are teaching our kids, nursing our kids and protecting our kids. They are in our police stations, our fire stations and on the bench next to us at the train station. Homosexuals are proportionally over-represented as volunteers and staff members of non-profit organizations that benefit our community. We benefit from their labor, their volunteerism, their charitable donations and their friendship. Yet we deny them the rights and privileges we enjoy. You can live among us, but you cannot live equal to us.
I know I am going to get responses from this Post, many will bash me and use insults and taunts, some will say that Greg and Mike being “married” diminishes the marriage of a man and a woman—in thirteen years of marriage I can tell you in no way is my marriage diminished by same sex couples who live as we do, in fact it may be enhanced by our observing another couple in love sharing their lives together, settling disputes, arranging duties and chores and creating a stable, happy and loving environment in their home. Some will call legally sanctified and fully privileged gay unions a threat to the American way of life, or culture or putting us on the road to hell. I will be told that homosexuality is a sin, a choice and not natural—before you email me this know that I disagree and that position does not sway my belief in equal rights for gays. Instead of calling me names, or them names, or quoting verse or bad science, tell me why, legally, a license issued by the state can be discriminatory. Why can Greg and Mike get drivers licenses, fishing licenses and business licenses but not a marriage license—even if it is called something else? Why do I have to have clients sign a form indicating it is illegal to discriminate in lending based on race, religion, sex, gender but not sexual orientation? Why do we allow lawful discrimination?
In the meantime the national debate is on how many rights and when to give them to those who have broken our laws and create tremendous financial pressures on our education, health care, housing and legal systems. Our politicians are debating how to give benefits to Esteban and Maria and denying them to Greg and Mike.
In a way I admire the social conservatives, at least they are consistent in wanting to deny rights to both groups—the illegal aliens and the American gays; I can deal with and at least understand linear ideological clarity. What I cannot understand are those willing to hand out benefits to those who have broken laws and deny them to those who have written, abided by and enforced laws.
Greg and Mike, my wish for you is the same wish I have for Leslie and myself. That you have a long and prosperous relationship, one of happiness and love, that you continue to have a positive impact on our community and that when the time comes many, many, many years from now when one must say “good-bye, thank you for a wonderful life” that the one left behind has no worries about benefits or inheritance or other legalities but only the worry of how to fill the vacancy in their life.