By Carter Bundy
Nov. 4, 2008 will largely be remembered as a great day exemplifying how far America has come in terms of tolerance, acceptance, diversity and even love for other humans.
It’s not just that Sen. Obama garnered a record numbers of votes. Even a sizeable number, probably a significant majority, of those who voted for Sen. McCain celebrate America’s historic shattering of a racial barrier.
Unfortunately, Nov. 4 will also be remembered as a dark day for American tolerance. We’ve come a long way on race, but have even further to go when it comes to sexual orientation. Three states, including one of the most liberal, enlightened, and progressive (California) voted to ban gay “marriage.”
Semantics
I put “marriage” in quotation marks because semantics matter when it comes to equal rights. Many in the LGBT community won’t settle for something like “domestic partnerships” or “civil unions,” because either people are first-class citizens or they’re not, and if heteros can “marry,” why can’t gays?
On the other hand, it’s not the government’s job to interfere with church teachings, and many of those opposed to gay “marriage” claim to be unopposed to equal legal rights; they just believe that the term “marriage” is a religious term that should be reserved for the concept of a union that their particular church or mosque advocates.
People who claim to support gays but not gay marriage frequently cited the problem of government interfering in religious matters. Giving people the benefit of the doubt that such an excuse was their true reason for voting for discrimination, that was still a huge factual error.
Nothing about “gay marriage,” in any state in America, requires, or has proposed to require, churches to perform ceremonies, or even to recognize gay marriage. It has nothing – zero — to do with interfering with religion.
I wish there were another term that would grant full and equal legal rights to gays, because if there were, they’d be far closer to being full citizens in America. But there are literally hundreds of benefits, many federal, that inure only to “married” couples. That is the main reason why gay marriage needs to be passed.
Most national Democrats have also stood up against gay “marriage,” but only to the extent that it has a religious component. Most national Dems, including Sen. Obama, are in favor of full equal rights under the law for gays. Unfortunately, high-level Dems being against the term “gay marriage” undoubtedly contributed to the passage of official discrimination in California.
If someone were to come up with a way that gays could have exactly the same legal rights as straights, and reserve the term “marriage” for religious institutions, heck, I wouldn’t care, and neither would many gays (although that is a contentious issue within the LGBT community — classic symbolism vs. pragmatism schism).
In fact, for those concerned about the religious connotation of the word “marriage,” here’s an easy solution: Support national legislation changing the term “marriage” in any national or state legislation to mean “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships.” I’m not confident that change will happen, but it’s one way to resolve the religious concerns of citizens while still allowing gays to be full citizens of our country.
A brighter future
In California, Proposition 8 won by the narrowest of margins. The good news is that a similar measure passed a mere few years ago by over 20 points. One of Sen. Obama’s favorite lines is from Dr. King: The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
One Democrat, about whom I have had major objections in the past, has come through like a true champion of kindness in this battle: Al Sharpton. During his 2004 run for president, Sharpton said: “That’s like saying you give blacks, or whites, or Latinos the right to shack up — but not get married…It’s like asking ‘do I support black marriage or white marriage. … The inference of the question is that gays are not like other human beings.”
Heart of the matter
In Graham Greene’s “The Heart of the Matter,” a Catholic woman was distraught by her Catholic husband’s suicide (he had been caught cheating on her) because according to the official teachings of the Church, it meant eternal damnation for him. She went to their priest for explanation and comfort.
The priest asked if she’d already forgiven him for his suicide, and she said of course. The priest then simply asked if she didn’t have enough faith in the love and kindness of God that he would be at least as forgiving as a woman scorned, no matter what the official teachings of the Church.
The idea that God is so petty as to want gays to live without health care, or without happiness, and in particular the idea that God wants us fellow humans to be so judgmental as to treat other humans as second-class citizens — well, I think God’s a little bigger than that.
As I was looking for that passage from Graham Greene online, I found another quotation attributed to him: “They are always saying God loves us. If that’s love I’d rather have a bit of kindness.” In the Christianity I was raised with, there wasn’t a difference between “God’s love” and kindness. But it appears there’s a big difference between the two in today’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), at least on this issue.
The Mormon Church was the major funder of Prop. 8. Proposition 8 was a cruel, unkind, gratuitous, crushing blow to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Californians. It doesn’t make the life of a single Mormon any fuller, any richer, any better, and certainly no closer to any God who values treating people with kindness.
I’ll leave the topic with another quote, this one from a woman who, until 11 weeks ago, was the most famous woman to ever come out of Alaska. Jewel’s song “Hands” applies as much to the battle over equal rights for gays as it does anything else: “In the end, only kindness matters.”
The next generation will be kinder, but history won’t be
We now look back with ridicule at the forces of intolerance — including some organized religions — that tried to ban interracial marriage in the 50s and 60s.
Thirty or 40 years from now, when the battle for equal rights under the law regardless of orientation has been long won, people will look back with incredulity at the lack of kindness and decency of some churches and some Americans the same way. It’s not too late to jump on the kindness bandwagon.
This isn’t a battle that gay people will win — it’s a battle that kind people will win, and if hard-core Mormons or others choose to oppose that movement, then they’re the poorer for it.
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.