I have spent some time thinking before publishing this post. The recent decision by a majority of California voters to retract the rights for same sex couples to marry is a major defeat for the basic human rights. Politically, California is a vastly powerful state, due to its size, economy, and population. In the shadow of Obama’s election win, homosexuals in California just had their rights of equality taken away. By voting yes on proposition 8, California has created the opportunity to prevent homosexuals from adopting children, filing joint tax returns, and for the thousands of individuals who receive joint health benefits, these now become taxable (the federal government already taxes these benefits, which means, if your health policy is valued at $6,500 and you make $70,000 per year, you must pay the government about $2,800 per year simply to receive these benefits, whereas married individuals do not pay this tax). Taxing domestic partners is akin to charging a fee on homosexuality.
My argument is quite simple- there is no difference between hating gays and believing that gays should not have the right to marriage. Opponents of gay marriage will all say that they want to protect the sanctity of marriage and family values, but there is no reason to think that homosexual couples damage the sanctity of marriage or create environments that are not nurturing for children. At it’s root, people opposed to gay marriage are uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality- it seems unnatural and icky to them, and they are frightened by the act of homosexual sex- to them it is the equivalent of devil-worship. The research now shows that the momentum for the adoption of California’s same-sex marriage ban came from religious voters. If you go to http://protectmarriage.com/ you can see a benign animated clip that attempts to clarify what proposition 8 attempted to “protect”. Countless sermons and church literature told a lie to its acolytes: if proposition 8 had not passed, priests could be jailed for refusing to perform gay marriage ceremonies. Elisabeth Hasselback, also perpetuated this lie on The View. The lambs have been corralled by a wolf…. There is this thing called separation of church and state that would protect the church from being required to honor these marriages. It would be illegal for government subsidized organizations to prevent homosexuals from adopting children, but considering that churches already don’t have to pay property tax or declare their income, this seems like a minor detail. Had proposition 8 been defeated, it would be criminal only for municipalities to refuse to recognize gay marriages, not churches.
The semantic problem with proposition 8 and all referendums calling for the ban of the gay marriage is that at it’s root, the definition of gender is so slippery. The transgendered population has proven this point well. There are numerous examples of married couples where one partner undergoes gender reassignment surgery- and the marriage is still recognized. It is not unheard of for parents to have to decide the gender of their child at birth after a botched circumcision or the presence of unusual genitalia. What is the state’s official stance on the 1 percent of the population that does not fit into the current definition of “male” and “female”- These people are allowed to marry whom they choose assuming the gender on their birth certificate is the opposite gender of the person they are marrying. Hermaphrodites have, on some occasions, been able to change the gender as recorded on their birth certificates. I think that herein lies one of the quickest legal routes to the ultimate adoption of gay marriage laws in the near future. If we cannot clearly define what male and female are, how can we say that marriage must be between a man and a woman, and there are many examples of how these definitions have been subverted thanks to the transgender and hermaphrodite populations.
The silver lining to all of this is that the legal dialogue has been opened, and many of the other developed nations in the world have already passed laws permitting homosexuals to marry. Also, the evidence suggests that homosexual parents are no more inadequate at raising children than heterosexuals, and have you ever tried to stop a lesbian from getting pregnant? It is not that hard for gay people to reproduce the old fashioned way if adoption is not available. Last time I checked, eugenics was not legally permissible. Recently, my other half and I attended the nationwide protest on California’s gay marriage ban, and the good news is that within 3 years, our state is poised to adopt it’s own gay marriage referendum. Take that Elisabeth Hasselback!
