Post-swearing in, I got into a lengthy discussion about the inauguration and my disdain for the view that civil unions should satisfy the LBGT population in their quest for equality. I was faced once again with the opinion that civil unions should satisfy the quest for equal rights. In my mind, gays (and their supporters) aren't really searching for equal rights. They are seeking equality. And at this point the semantics discussion enters in. The logic (flawed in my mind) follows that: If gays are granted civil unions, and civil unions provide the same "benefits" as the legal institution of marriage, then the term civil union should be sufficient. My logic is: If gays are granted the same benefits of the legal institution of marriage, then call it a marriage for crying out loud! The only way I could try to get my point across was this: Women and men fought for women's suffrage. Women became voters, just like men. There was no distinction between male voters and female voters. They did not create another term for women as a subgroup of the ballot-casting population. They didn't call them Pickers or Selectors or Choosers. They called them voters when they were FINALLY granted the same right to vote that men (at least the white ones) had held for-seemingly-ever. To call women with the right to vote by another name denigrates that right and continues to promote a distinction between the two groups when that distinction shouldn't exist. So, if gay couples are FINALLY allowed to have their commitment to each other recognized legally as having the same benefits as the currently legal heterosexual marriages, it should be called by the same name to promote equality. It's senseless to me that a gay couple should seek a Civil Union License, while heterosexual couples apply for a Marriage License. Why don't we just take another step backwards (at least in some parts of our great country... in other parts, this would probably make sense) and have Interracial Marriage Licenses? Or Interfaith Marriage Licenses? If there's going to be one distinction, should every couples' differences be identified as well? Hell, why not break it down into nationalities and throw some slurs in there as well? Maybe a Wop-Mick Marriage License? How about more defining physical and emotional characteristics, like Fattie-Redneck Marriage License? And we can work on the specifics of the gay licenses, too...Bear-Queen Marriage License...Lipstick-Bull Dyke Marriage License... The possibilities are endless. Which is even more reason to just call it a damn marriage.
3 comments:
My position was not just about the semantics, although I knew during our discourse that you would run with that, and that only.
My overall feeling on the issue is...sometimes progress requires baby steps, sometimes it requires a bulldozer.
I generally prefer methods that leave less destruction for all.
Isolating one group over another, whether majority or minority, rarely bodes well for the entire collection. In that sense your position becomes cyclical. And the issue is left unresolved. Or, perhaps, you end up with yet another marginalized group. Which counteracts the progress you are attempting to make.
Here's a few quotes for you:
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.” -Kahlil Gibran
“Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.” -Goethe
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
-Henry Ford
Part of it is not about semantics at all. It is what it is. Civil unions are not legal institutions of marriage, regardless of how you try to phrase such "benefits" (or rights, as some of us believe).
And I'm pretty sure all we've been doing is taking baby steps or moving backward. Stonewall happened in 1969 (not too far off from the Detroit race riots of 1967). It took until 1996 for sexual orientation to be voted on to be included in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which included race), and it was defeated. So, they don't even have equal protection in the workplace, and they don't have equality in the marriage bed. How much slower should we try and move this? At what point is anyone supposed to be satisfied with the "progress" made for equality for gays? And what kind of destruction is had by anyone allowing gays to marry (or for that matter, protecting their employment rights)? "Giving" gays civil unions is to try to pacify them and not extend to them the rights they deserve. And that is contemptuous.
It's not that long ago when my mom couldn't get a credit card on her own because she was a woman, and it was legal to discriminate against her for having a vagina and ovaries and a uterus. She had a job and a college education, but apparently she couldn't be trusted with credit? We extremely lucky that people fought for women's rights, and that we haven't been subject to nearly the same horrors that our foremothers went through. But somehow, we, as a subgroup of society - and I mean anyone who has falls into a class that now enjoys legal protection - don't find it necessary to ease the path for others and expedite the fight? And why do we keep having the same fight over and over? It makes no sense.
I need to add to my last comment: The House passed an employment non-discrimination clause to include gender identity in Nov. 2007. The Senate has yet to do anything with it. Apparently, they believe in baby steps, too. I mean, they certainly wouldn't just sit on that issue during an election year, would they?
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