A RIVER BETWEEN US

By Brian Hannon

Why is it morally reprehensible to call someone a “fag” or a “dyke” but socially acceptable to bar that same person from walking in a St. Patrick’s Day parade or serving as a spiritual guide?

How has preventing employment based on sexual orientation become a federal crime and preventing marriage based on sexual orientation become the subject of a proposed constitutional amendment strongly backed by our very own president?

This is the hypocrisy behind the last publicly tolerated form of bigotry in America: the political, legal and social prejudice against homosexuals.

Yet just over the border to our north, the Canadian Supreme Court on December 10, 2004, declared gay marriage constitutional, leaving lawmakers there free to codify the practice.

If the Canadian Parliament passes a gay marriage law—very likely considering the backing of a majority of its citizens—our neighbor will become only the third country in the world with fully legalized same-sex nuptials, along with the Netherlands and Belgium.

Contrast that with America, where our president and his administration advocate a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage, while in the November elections eleven states passed measures placing outright bans on same-sex marriage.

“It’s hard to believe that just a river separates us from the reality in the United States,”
Toronto lawyer Douglas Elliott, who was party to the Canadian Supreme Court case, told the Washington Post.

The reality in America is stark. Consider the headlines, just from December, when the Canadian court made its landmark ruling:

• The California Superior Court heard arguments over the constitutionality of the state’s marriage law to decide whether it would continue to exclusively cover one-man, one-woman couplings. Gay advocates claim that the state’s new domestic partnership law extending some of the same rights as heterosexual couples enjoy, but not the full state of marriage, amounts to separate but equal segregation.

• The Naval Academy Alumni Association rejected the establishment of a gay and lesbian chapter, claiming it was exclusionary and not geographically centered. The sixty-eight members rewrote their bylaws to accept heterosexual members and name the Castro district of San Francisco as the geographic base, but to no avail. The proposed chapter was the only one ever denied affiliation by the association.

• CBS and NBC both refused to air a United Church of Christ advertisement because it showed two men holding hands being barred from entering a church, highlighting the message that U.C.C. is more welcoming than some other denominations. CBS claimed it does not accept “advocacy advertising” and NBC said its policy was not to air commercials dealing with “issues of public controversy.” Both networks also explained the depiction of gay people was not offensive, but that they took umbrage with the suggestion that other churches shun homosexuals. Apparently reality TV is only for prime time, not advertising.

• A jury of United Methodist Church clergy “convicted” a lesbian priest of, well, being a lesbian and subsequently defrocked her. The Rev. Irene Stroud freely admitted that, like a majority of Americans, she lives in a monogamous, committed relationship but that the other person happens to also be a woman. The retired bishop who served as judge in the case threw out the testimony of six experts who testified for the defense that banning homosexual clergy ran contrary to the church’s own legal doctrine.

Of course, the doings of religious denominations are certainly not representative of the population as a whole, although a majority of Americans are religious in some form or other, and, for many of them, these beliefs underpin their moral condemnation of homosexuality and legislative opposition to same-sex marriage. First among these is President George W. Bush.

Bush claims he is concerned about social laws being dictated by “activist judges” and the “far-left minority,” but he makes no pretense about his opposition to gay marriage being a product of his born-again Christian faith. Without belaboring the seemingly obvious fact that the Bible is not the United States Constitution, the gay marriage issue should not come down to the beliefs of hard-line Christians, even if they do run the Administrative Branch. Nor should it be considered a question based on, in, or even around religion of any flavor. This is a matter of civil rights and the institutional hypocrisy that frequently tramples them.

Despite frequently referring to himself as “a uniter, not a divider,” Bush is pushing to create a constitutional divide between one segment of American society and the rest. The so-called Federal Marriage Amendment would be the only one besides Prohibition to take a liberty from Americans, although this is clearly different than the teetotaling legislation that lasted from 1920 to 1933 because it does not affect the whole country but rather goes directly against the letter and spirit of the “one nation” credo by singling out a specific group of our citizens due to an essential aspect of their identity. (For a better understanding of laws targeting people based on their identity, point your friendly neighborhood search engine at the following words and phrases: Jim Crow, Negro, I Have a Dream. See also: Nazi Germany, Jews.)

The Bush administration wants to prevent homosexuals from ever having the legal freedom to say “I do,” whether in a religious ceremony or at city hall, solely because they are gay; all while fighting a pair of wars to promote “freedom” in the Middle East. (This begs the question of whether the Bush team advocates a same-sex marriage ban in Iraq. Perhaps an oil-for-gay-marriage-license program can be established.)

And take note of the queer fact that Vice President Dick Cheney supports the constitutional prohibition of gay marriage, with his usual deadpan straight face, despite having fathered a lesbian. Oh, those Republicans can sure lay the irony on thick.

American conservatives—who reportedly flocked to the polls due to concerns over national moral values—and moderates of both parties offer up legal civil unions as an alternative to marriage so gay people can garner financial benefits and protections for their partners while the “sanctity” of marriage remains intact. (Frankly, if they want to protect the sanctity of marriage they should keep Britney Spears out of Vegas and put a cap on serial nuptialists like Larry King.)

The civil union bid is, of course, a preposterous political and social cop-out since the only thing this tactic protects is the actual word “marriage.” The state lawyer handling the aforementioned California Superior Court case stated as much. “They [homosexuals] want recognition, and we hear that,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Louis Mauro told the Washington Post. “But we also hear what the people of California are saying… that the word ‘marriage’ has a particular meaning for them.”

In this way, homosexuals won’t be able to say they are “married” and heading home to nosh with their “husband,” but rather that they have a loving “civil union” and are spending a weekend in Key West with their “partner.” In other words, the invisible but socially undeniable “us” and “them” boundary remains safe, and the Christian Coalition clan won’t have to worry about any perceived similarities with the Queer Eye guys.

Meanwhile, in Canada there is also opposition to same-sex marriage. A leader of the group Real Women of Canada said they want to “protect” marriage and threatened that parliamentarians voting to legalize gay marriage would lose their jobs.

Yet the majority of Canadians are quite tolerant. Six of the ten provinces in Canada issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, military personnel can obtain benefits for gay partners, there are homosexuals in the cabinet and other high government posts, and the Toronto gay pride parade has an annual attendance of six figures, including every politician who actually aspires to get elected.

“Canada is without a doubt one of the best—if not the best—places to live as a gay or lesbian person,” said Elliot, the Toronto lawyer.

It may be just a river that separates us physically from Canada, but when it comes to gay marriage and tolerance, those waters comprise an ideological divide as wide as an ocean. 

 

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