Ms. Serwin
Essay #1
09/06/04
‘Til Nullification Do Us Part?
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon celebrated their 51st anniversary this last Valentine’s Day. For any couple, this is a feat rarely reached. But this is not just “any couple,” Martin and Lyon are lesbians and what they wanted most in life was to be able to marry each other. Their wish came true when on Thursday, February 12th they were asked by San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom, and the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Kate Kendall, to be the first gay couple to tie the knot in California (Gordon).
Here we are in the 21st century. We have sent men to the moon, have given birth to test tube babies and even cloned animals, yet gays are still denied, in most states, the right to marry. If homosexuality is determined at birth and if states identify gays as legal parents, to keep them from marriage is to deny them of equal protection under the law.
The legality of the issuance of marriage licenses in San Francisco may have been stretching the law in California by using the Constitution as a shield. It was President Bush’s State of the Union address that prompted Mayor Newsom to defy California’s law. Newsom, who attended the January 20th speech as a guest of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, listened as the President said he would order a Constitutional amendment if necessary to outlaw same-sex marriage. After the President’s speech, Newsom called his chief of staff, Steve Kawa, a gay man who was at home with his partner and their two children, and told him he “wanted to do something” (Gordon).
Two weeks after the President’s speech, Newsom told his staff to “gather as many legal briefs, news articles and other background information [on issuing marriage licenses to gay couples] as they could” (Gordon). This is what they came up with: “The California Family Code states that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. They decided to proceed on the grounds that denying marriage licenses to gays and lesbians violates their rights to equal protection under the California Constitution. They looked at the marriage license documents and determined that they would need to make the language gender neutral. Words and phrases such as ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ and ‘unmarried man’ and ‘unmarried woman’ would have to be changed” (Gordon).
That Wednesday afternoon the call went to Lyon and Martin asking them if they wanted to get married. It took only ten minutes for them to return their response and on Thursday morning, Lyon, in a blue pants suit, and Martin, in a purple one, quietly slipped into city hall to do what would become a major issue in California. At precisely 11:06 a.m., the ceremony began (Gordon).
Who would have thought that this event would attract nearly 4,000 gay and lesbian couples to San Francisco in the course of a month? Some couples flew while others drove. Despite, at times, an eight-hour wait and bad weather, one couple, Joe Flanigan and Keith Kelly, said the atmosphere was festive. Flanigan said, “It was a blast, people were coming by, honking their horns, congratulating everybody, newly married couples would walk out holding their marriage certificate, and everybody was going crazy…”(Ralston). Even Rosie O’Donnell and her longtime partner went to San Francisco to get married.
What mayor Newsom started in San Francisco became national headlines overnight. It brought forth colossal opposition by those wanting to preserve “traditional” marriage. It all came to an end March 11, when the court ordered a halt to the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses. The issue went to the California Supreme Court, who on August 12 ruled the nearly 4,000 marriages preformed in San Francisco are “void and of no legal effect” (Branigin).
Up until 1973, homosexuality was considered a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. Gays were seen as different from straights because they were considered “abnormal” by mental health establishments. Then in 1973 homosexuality was redefined as “a fixed, inborn trait” and removed from the list of disordered of the American Psychiatric Association (Throckmorton).
There was research done at the University of Texas at Austin by Dennis Mc Fadden, professor of experimental psychology and Craig Champlin, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders that confirms that homosexuality is an inborn trait. Their study shows that the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals respond differently to auditory stimuli. “When brief acoustic stimuli are presented to the ear, a distinctive series of brain waves is produced -- and the research shows that certain waves differ in their size or timing in homosexuals and heterosexuals.” For both males and females, five separate measures of the auditory brain waves were different in the homosexuals and heterosexuals. All of the waves showing differences appeared within 0.05 seconds following the acoustic stimulus. Mc Fadden said, "the implication is that some brain structures were masculinized at some time during development" (Office of Public Affairs; UT Austin).
Gay couples share many rights and privileges with straight couples. One such privilege is that of becoming parents. Many gay couples, some even famous, such as actor B.D. Wong who stars on Law and Order, have chosen to have their biological child through the help of a surrogate. He and his partner now have a son through the use of Wong’s sperm and the egg of his partner’s sister so that the baby would have both parents’ D.N.A (Bernstein). Other gay couples, like Rosie O’Donnell and her partner have opted for adoption. There are more “roadblocks” for gay couples who decide on adoption. Only the state of Florida outright bans homosexuals from adopting children (The Adoption Option).
Gay parents, just as straight parents, when they break up have to deal with the issue of child custody and child support. Such is the case with Kergan Edwards-Stout and his partner Jim. They got their son, Mason in 2000 by private adoption and planned on adopting a couple more. Kergan quit his job to become a stay-at-home dad. Then the couple split up. “Now we’re trying to figure out custody and visitation and child support and all of that,” said Edwards-Stout (The Adoption Option).
People who are against gay parenting say that the children raised in a same sex household will become gay. But since it is now known that homosexuality is something a person is born with, it can’t be said that someone will be “made” gay because they see it in their house. There have been no studies done that say the contrary. In fact mental health establishments have said that “children raised by single gender couples are in no way different or disadvantaged over children raised by opposite sex couples” (Throckmorton).
For some couples, marriage would just be a luxury—that is until something drastic happens. Something big happened to Kelly Burke and Delores Doyle that made getting legally married something that was needed. “Really what this is about is the ability to become a family. And in our society, being a family carries legal protections and rights," she says. That fact hit Kelly with full force a few years ago, just after her son Avery was born. She developed a potentially life-threatening blood clot in her leg before her partner had officially adopted him. She worried whether Delores would get custody if anything went seriously wrong. "You know what should have been kind of a health crisis quickly turned into a real panic for our family's legal status. It was actually more stressful than the actual medical problem going on and really terrifying," she says (Fogarty).
Along with the legal reasons, there are also financial and emotional reasons why homosexuals want and should be able to marry. Many companies do not allow “domestic partners” to be covered under an employee’s health benefits insurance. With the cost of health care what it is today, this can be financially draining to a homosexual family; especially if the person who isn’t allowed coverage—which would be granted if they had a marriage certificate—has a chronic medical problem requiring medication and ongoing care.
Such is the case with Delores and her partner Kelly and their son, Avery. Delores Doyle is an electrician. She's the sole breadwinner for the family. "I would say the majority of the guys I work with are married," she says. "I don't think they're actually aware of the…benefits of being married. Many of the benefits of marriage are sort of this social safety net. If I were to die, Kelly has no legal recognition."
That means Kelly doesn't qualify for family health insurance, workers compensation payments, or the pension benefits provided by the local electricians' union if something were to happen to Delores at work. So the couple has to shell out $200 extra a month for private insurance for Kelly (Fogarty). Interestingly, I suppose the child is covered as an adopted child…
But for those who can’t afford to pay for the private health insurance, they end up having to get public health and social service benefits such as Medi-Cal. The city of San Francisco alone contends that situations such as this, costs the city approximately $20 million a year that it wouldn’t have to grant if homosexual couples were allowed to marry (Romney).
Groups who are against gay marriage say such things as, “We need to protect the sanctity of marriage.” But what are we saying about the sanctity of marriage when straight couples, like Britney Spears, gets “bored” in Las Vegas and gets married for 55 hours? Barbara Herrera and Sarah Hubbard have strong beliefs on this topic. Herrera said, “…here we are, 18 years, taxpaying, working, owning a business together, raising four kids, putting them through…school—how is that ruining the sanctity of marriage? It’s honoring the institution of marriage. It’s showing that we want to be a part of the government statistics that show how normal and typical we are” (Ralston).
Another position held by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, is that “marriage is a tradition created for men and women—in furtherance of procreation—and that same-sex couples have no fundamental right to participate” (Romney). But if they are saying that procreation is the reason for marriage what about those women who find themselves getting older and without a husband? Do they not have the right to procreate for the simple fact that they have no husband?
In California, an appeal to the nullification of the marriages performed in San Francisco has been filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The NCLR’s brief says the plaintiffs in this case are “businesspeople, teachers, healthcare providers, government and nonprofit agency employees, lawyers, homemakers and retirees. Many of these couples are raising or have raised children together. Some are caring for ailing parents. Others are elderly or struggling with illness themselves.” Yet all are denied civil marriage licenses because they love someone of the same sex, the brief says, a rejection that “adversely affects their rights and responsibilities, their financial well-being, and their ability to act for each other in the myriad transactions that compromise modern life. But marriage is far more than a bundle of benefits. For two people who have found joy in each other, marriage is a definitive expression of love, devotion, and dedication. Marriage is a singular institution through which one person express to another, and to society more broadly, how deeply the other is cherished. Denying the right to marry one’s chosen partner forecloses one of life’s most effective means to show one’s beloved that she or he is utterly precious and irreplaceable” (Richman).
Under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution, denying same-sex couples from marriage intrudes on their “rights to liberty, privacy and equality” and therefore must be made legal. A ruling of such in a state as influential as California would help to get such rulings across the country.
Works Cited
“The Adoption Option”. The Advocate. 28 May 2002. <www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2002_May_28/ai_86128324/print>.
Bernstein, Fred. “B.D. Wong….” Advocate.com. 10 June 2003. <www.advocate.com/html/stories/891/891_wong.asp>.
Branigin, Whilliam. “Calif. Court Voids….” The Washington Post. 12 Aug. 2004. <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59889-2004Aug12.html>.
Fogarty, Colin. “Gay Couple Awaits Legal Parity in Oregon.” 28 April 2004. <http://quickstart.clari.net/voa/art/cd/939EBADA-484D-847C558002B8623B.html>.
Gordon, Rachel. “The Battle Over Same-sex Marriage.” The Chronicle. 15 Feb. 2004. <www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/15/MNGMN51F>.
Office of Public Affairs. “Auditory Brians Different….” UT Austin. 12 July 2000. <www.utexas.edu/opa/news/00newsrelease/nr_200007/nr_brain000712.html>.
Ralston, Rachel. “San Diego Couples Tie the Knot….” Gay and Lesbian Times. Issue #871. 2003. <www.gaylesbiantimes.com/print.php?id=2096>.
Richman, Josh. “Marriage Advocates Make a Case.” Tri-Valley Herald. 3 Sep. 2004. <www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2377865,00.html>.
Romney, Lee. “Same-sex Marriage Court Fight Takes Shape.” L.A.Times. 4 Sep. 2004. <www.latimes.com/news/local/ventura/la-me-samesex4sep04,1,828223,print.story?>.
Throckmorton, Warren PhD. “Gay Marriage: How We Arrived at the Alter.” American Daily. 4 Mar.2004. <www.americandaily.com/article/3388>.
This is an excellent treatment of a very complex issue. You stuck with the focus of the legality of gay marriage and your anecdotal examples enhance your argument further. Very convincing. Score: 15 = A