Happy Fourth Of July! Get Ready!

Happy Fourth of July, a.k.a. US Independence Day!

Many in our community are still celebrating the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage.   Still, there's a long road ahead until we achieve equality in all areas of life.  In other words, we're still not close to freely exercising all of the things most people take for granted in the Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights.

So...enjoy this day.  And prepare for what's coming.

For The Community, A Victory. For You And Your Partner, Maybe Not So Much.

As I have said in earlier posts, even though I support marriage equality, I would much prefer that the government got out of the marriage business altogether, save to set a minimum age at which people can enter into a union.  And it would be exactly that—a union.  It would allow couples visitation and inheritance rights and specify custody and other responsibilities. It would also allow one member of the couple to add the other to her or his health care policy and apartment lease agreement or title to the house. However, there would be no tax benefit for getting married. 

One reason why I believe in such an arrangement even more firmly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling became apparent to me today.  Now same-sex marriage is legal throughout the US, employers will be required to allow workers to add their same-sex spouses to their health insurance policies.  This begs the question:  Will employers stop offering domestic-partner benefits?  Will they require couples, whether hetero- or homo-sexual, to be married in order to share in the benefits the company offers?

One of the great ironies of my life is that I was once included in a partner’s health-care benefits—when I was still living as a man with a female partner.  We had a domestic partnership agreement, which New York City was offering to all couples at that time (late 1990’s and early 2000’s).  If I were still with her—whether in my former or current identity—would she be allowed to include me on her health insurance? 

I’m guessing that the answer would be “yes” just because this is New York City and her company had a surprisingly (to me at the time, anyway) enlightened view of such things.  But what if we’d been in one of those states where same-sex marriage—and even domestic partnerships—weren’t legal before last week’s ruling?  It’s hard for me to imagine that a company based in a state that didn’t have domestic partnerships would allow partners’ benefits, especially if it was compelled by court order to offer insurance to same-sex couples.

Somehow I think the battles not only aren’t over; they haven’t even begun yet.

Body Language And Marriage Politics

Four years ago, marchers in New York City’s Pride March—and revelers on the streets and in parties during and after the event—celebrated the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Empire State, which had come to pass only a few days earlier.

This year, there was similar jubilation because, just the other day, same-sex marriage was legalized in all of the United States.  The cool wind that blew drizzle and rain into this city through much of the day didn’t seem to keep very many people away from the march and other celebrations.

Something I saw after this year’s march bears a striking similarity with something I observed four years ago.  In most years, one sees LGBT people and their allies, alone or in groups, walking around with their rainbow flags and other regalia.  One also sees couples, but many of them have a certain tentativeness that can be seen in the almost-truncated ways they hold hands, put their arms around each other or simply walk with each other.  It’s almost as if some of them know that they can display their affection so publicly for that one day.

But this year, I saw none of that furtiveness.  The couples I saw—young old and in-between; men with men, women with women and cis people with transgenders—walked with more confidence and less of the ostentation people display when they know their moment of bliss can be rudely (or, worse, violently) interrupted.  In other words, they seemed to enjoy the sense of security—Nobody can take this away from us—most cisgender heterosexual couples don’t even realize they take for granted.

I was noticing change in couples’ body language and, it seemed, in their sense of time itself, not on the Christopher Street Pier or in Chelsea clubs or Jackson Heights bars.  Rather, I observed them in the South Bronx, where I rode my bike to meet a friend after the festivities.   I also noticed it later in my own neighborhood of Astoria—which, while it has a fair-sized LGBT community living openly, isn’t exactly Chelsea or even Jackson Heights.  Somehow I imagine that had I gone to other neighborhoods in Queens or Manhattan or the Bronx—or Brooklyn, or even Staten Island—I would have seen something similar.  In short, everyone was breathing a little freer today—even more so than we were four years ago.

Same-Sex Marriage Is Legal Everywhere In The US

An old man walks, with some trepidation, into an old house.

It's dark, there's lots of dust and the floors creak with each step he takes.  But he' not really worried (or so he tells himself) until he hears:

Boooo.... I am the spi-rit...of same-sex marriage...Woooo!

The old man screams:  Oh, no!  There goes the threat to our democracy.

Now, of course, neither that house nor that ghost exists---except, of course, in the fantasies of that old man.

And who is that old man?, you ask.

Why, he's none other than our good friend Antonin Scalia.

Yes, that Antonin Scalia.  The one who's been on the Supreme Court for nearly three decades.  

Now, to be fair, he didn't specifically say that same-sex marriage is the threat.  Rather, he blasted the Supreme Court--or, more specifically, five members of it. In calling them the threat to democracy, he probably came as close as he could to saying that he's against same-sex marriage without saying it.  He's like all of those people who say "states' rights" as a code phrase for their opposition to laws protecting racial equality.

Those five judges--Anthony Kennedy (who wrote the opinion), Stephen Beyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan--marriage is a right of all same-sex couples, regardless of where in the United States they live.  The other four judges--Scalia, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas--each wrote their own dissenting opinions.

From the tone of this, you can tell that I'm pleased with the ruling. However, I still don't believe that granting same-sex marriage rights is the best solution.  I believe that, ideally, governments should have nothing at all to do with marriage other than to set a minimum age.  I also don't believe that religious institutions should be vested with the power of marriage.  If people want to have ceremonies in their houses of worship or prayer or whatever, that is fine.  But such a ceremony shouldn't legalize a person's union.  I'm no Constitutional lawyer or scholar, but it seems to me that the situation I've described--i.e., the one we have--conflicts with the Constitutional separation of church and state. Today's ruling does nothing to change that.

Still, though, today's decision is better than second-class citizenship, which is what too many same-sex couples now have.
 
 

The High Cost Of Marriage Inequality

Even though same-sex marriage is legal in the vast majority of US States, in most of those states, there are groups and individuals who are trying to have bans against same-sex marriage reinstated.  I hope they don't succeed, but we can't assume that they won't.

That's why it's still relevant to talk about how unfair bans against same-sex marriage are.  What most people don't realize is the economic injustice of marriage inequality:

R.I.P. "Beau" Biden

Yesterday we lost one of our champions:  Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III lost his battle with brain cancer.

Two years ago, as the Attorney General of the State of Delaware, he joined Governor Jack Markell in supporting same-sex marriage legislation, which passed soon thereafter.  Thus did Delaware become the eleventh state--and the twelfth jurisdiction--in the US to legalize gay marriage.  

One month later, he urged state lawmakers to pass legislation that would establish legal protections based on gender identity.  Only fifteen days later, Governor Markell signed that bill into law.

So, within the space of just over two months, Biden managed to bring both same-sex marriage and gender equality to his state.  How many other public officials have such a record?

While his commitment to human rights was palpable, he's an example of how "an apple doesn't fall far from the tree".  If his last name looks familiar to you, it's because his father is Joe Biden--yes, that one, the Vice-President of the United States.  It was Biden pere who, in essence, cornered President Obama into supporting same-sex marriage, something he had opposed while campaigning for office.

 

Gay Marriage In Ireland. Where Next?

Over the past few days, I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about the gay-marriage votein Ireland.  Several commentators mentioned that homosexual relations were illegal there as recently as 1993; abortion still is.  This state of affairs has generated discussion of how there has been a sea-change in the Emerald Isle within a generation—often from the very same people who talk about the “grip” Roman Catholic bishops still have on the politics of that country.

I think both of those notions are true.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, young Irish people—many of whom have gone abroad to go to school and work—have developed very different attitudes from their parents and grandparents about many issues.  At the same time, nearly all of those who still adhere to any sort of religious practice are still Roman Catholics. (There is a small but visible community of Muslims, most of whom have emigrated to Ireland recently.)  However, from what I’m hearing from people who have relatives or other connections to Ireland, those who adhere to their faith are doing so with a more independent mindset, as Catholics have done in other European countries in much of the Americas.  (They are the sort of people one Cardinal decried as “cafeteria Catholics".) So, while they might go to church and otherwise profess their faith in God and allegiance to the church, they do not think in lockstep with the Church hierarchy.

It’s hard not to believe that such people are feeling encouraged by the current Pope.  While he hasn’t endorsed same-sex marriage (and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect him or any Pope in the next couple of centuries to do so), he hasn’t spent any time denouncing it, or the Irish vote.  He has said that his priorities are—and the Church’s should be—helping the poor and otherwise disenfranchised.  I’d say he’s putting his money where his mouth is.

What all of this means, I believe, is that we might see same-sex marriage or civil unions legalized in places where we might not expect.  I’m not thinking now about countries like Germany and Italy:  I think they’ll eventually allow gay marriage if for no other reason than most of the other European Union countries, including France and England, have it.  I’m thinking about other countries with young, educated people whose attitudes are changing as a result of their exposure to the rest of the world, whether in person or online.  I won’t “name names”, so to speak.  But, as I say, they will come as much as a surprise to many people as Ireland did with its vote.

The Irish Vote For Gay Marriage

Having grown up Catholic enough to be an altar boy (and having gotten some of my education in a Catholic school), I am as fascinated as I am gratified by what’shappened in Ireland.

As you probably know by now, the Irish Republic made history the other day when it legalized same-sex marriage—by popular vote.  Yes, the Irish people themselves chose to legalize unions between two people of the same gender.  In every other nation or other jurisdiction in which it’s been legalized, the feat was accomplished by the vote of a legislative body, an executive decree or—as in the case of most US states in which same-sex marriage is legal—a judge’s order.  

What’s so fascinating to me is that, not so long ago, Ireland was regarded as one of the most resolutely Roman Catholic societies in the world.  The Irish were considered to be as devout as the Poles, Spanish and Quebecois.  Now, of course, gay marriage is legal in Spain and Quebec (as it is in the rest of Canada).  Some of the nuns in my Catholic school came from Ireland; the same was true of many other Catholic schools in the US at that time (the 1960’s and early 1970’s).  Also, as I recall, two of the priests in my parish were Irish.

Now, in Ireland as in much of the west, the young are not pursuing vocations as priests and nuns.  Many explanations have been offered for this phenomenon, one of the most plausible being increased prosperity.  Many priests in the US (and, as I’ve discovered, elsewhere) are coming from India, Nigeria, the Philippines and other impoverished countries where Catholic missionaries have been active.  Piety seems to pair much better with poverty than with prosperity.  As someone smarter than I am remarked, “Give them MTV and they’ll never go to seminary!”

That point is certainly valid.  However, one way in which Ireland was different from those countries (and others when they were turning out lots of priests and nuns) was that it was—and is—one of the world’s best-educated countries.  Probably the closest parallel we have today to pre-1990s Ireland is Cuba:  Nearly everybody is literate but also poor.

One difference, though, between Ireland past and Cuba present is that in Eire, education was controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Church.  Early in its history, about the only way an Irish person could get an education was to become a priest or nun.  They, in turn, would open most of the schools—and control the curriculum—in their country.

In the 1990s, young Irish people finally found opportunities to use their educations.   They seized upon advances in technology and the business world to turn their country into a center for research and financial services.  That, of course, furthered young people’s opportunity for education, both in their own country and abroad.  

Given what I’ve described, however sketchily, it seems less surprising that Irish attitudes about gender and sexuality have changed as quickly as they have.  On the other hand, it’s more surprising that abortion is still illegal there.  Perhaps that will be the next change in the Emerald Isle.