On Gay Marriage (Guest Voice)
Editor’s Note: This has been a huge week for gay rights. Vermont and Iowa gave the green-light, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut — with more states seemingly on the way and conservative GOPers’ once-potent power not quite as potent. Both sides are digging in their heels for a long — accelerating battle. In this Guest Voice post, Dalitso Njolinjo gives his perspective from England — and explains why he feels conflicted on the issue.
On Gay Marriage
by Dalitso Njolinjo
Here in England, the issue between same sex marriages has been, well a non-issue really. The Civil-Partnership Act of 2004 gave same sex couples the same contractual legal rights as heterosexual married couples. I remember when the act was made law, to some fanfare from both sides of the argument, but since then, nothing really.
Let me just say that I am hugely conflicted on this issue.
Thinking back on it today, the success of the GLBT community here in England was maybe due to their effective stewardship of the conversation in the public forum. Never did you hear a representative of the GLBT community framing their argument using religious language such as ‘marriage’ because when the average citizen thinks of that particular word, images of a couple walking down an aisle in a church are evoked. The argument of the GLBT was always discussed in terms of contractual and legal equal rights, something that the government should act to preserve and protect (sorry for my use of American phraseology).
That’s why I find myself torn when it comes to the debate in America.
I have a gay friend currently living in California. She believes that her equal rights are being infringed upon; she can’t share her partner’s health insurance and enter in many joint financial or legal contracts like many other heterosexual couples do. This in my opinion is wrong and in many cases unconstitutional, but I don’t believe that these are the issues that many ‘pro-marriage’ groups are fighting over. I believe some pro-marriage groups have legitimate, un-bigoted concerns.
I had a very religious up bringing as a Seventh Day Adventist. I had to go church every Saturday, go to weekday prayer meetings, read the bible every night before bedtime and stay away from unclean food (i.e. pork, prawns, duck). For my parents, their religion was very serious, it was a way of life and Jesus Christ was on par with their children. He was that important. I think for other religious citizens this is the case.
In fact many members of my mothers church own their own Christian businesses or own Christian organizations, so to preserve their Christian lives from secular interferences. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I remember around the time of the civil partnership act, every sermon in church was about the government infringing upon their religious rights.
‘Are they going to make me hire gays at my business?’
‘How can I allow a child to go to a gay family?’
‘Do I have to marry them at our church?’
These I believe are legitimate questions to ask. Can the government regulate religious institutions and religious businesses? What do you do when someone’s faith is in direct conflict with society’s law? When does faith impede the state?
As far as I know, no one at my mother’s church has been made to hire anyone they don’t want to hire nor have they had any gay patrons asking for their service at their business, but there is always that fear. I believe the fear is legitimate.
I am of the belief that what people do in their spare time is up to them. I don’t accept the notion that homosexual couples affect or endanger heterosexual couples. I have been with my girlfriend for eight years and in those years our relationship has suffered at the hands of heterosexual individuals, but never homosexuals. A homosexual has never told my mother how to worship her god, many heterosexual individuals have. I found out about homosexuality early in my childhood and never had it molded me into becoming a homosexual.
So I found myself very torn in the debate simmering in America. I believe all men should be treated equal and I believe in a separation between church and state. This is why I agree with the language of the British civil-partnership act. But I also agree that every citizen should have the right to faithfully practice a religion of their choosing without harming any other individual.
I think that the GLBT community in America is doing itself a disservice by fighting this war on the pro-marriage ground. They should steer this debate away from religion and make it about equal civil rights and make it into a debate on the separation of church and state.
After all: What is the difference between a soldier who fought bravely for his country and died protecting it, and just happened to be in a gay civil partnership and a heterosexual soldier with the same circumstances?
Dalitso Njolinjo lives in Northamptonshire, England. He is an aspiring writer and communications consultant. He writes that he “enjoys all things politics, sports and French. The ungodly trinity.” He also writes on his own blog.
Top cartoon by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune. Bottom cartoon by David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star. These cartoons are copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
UPDATE: CBS News has this report on gay marriage in the mid-West:
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16 Responses to “On Gay Marriage (Guest Voice)”
A few responses to the questions you bring up.
“Are they going to make me hire gays at my business?” It depends on whether sexual orientation is a protected class in that jurisdiction. If not, they no they won't make someone hire them (especially since there are usually excemptions for religious organizations). This would be true regardless of whether same sex marriages are allowed.
'How can I allow a child to go to a gay family' There is no evidence that being raised by a same sex couple has any effect on a child compared to being raised in a single parent or heterosexual couple.
“Do I have to marry them at our church?” No. Same sex marriages are civil marriages only. If a church wants to perform them I would assume they can but they would not be forced.
Basically same sex marriages don't infringe on people's religious rights. It just means that the right to marry the consention adult of your choice is extended to all people regardless of sexual orientation.
So your reasoning basically only leads to three solutions. Marriage shouldn't be a legal institution to begin with. Or we should put one group's rights above another, not allowing gay marriages because it goes against some people's religious beliefs. Or we basically turn gay people into second class citizens by allowing them to enter into a legal partenship but not allow it to be recognized legally as marriage.
Dalitso Njolinjo, in all of your arrogant posturing, you might take a moment to take in the fact that MANY Gay & Lesbian people are of the Christian faith and worship God, and all of the other things you straight folk do.
Your panic about 'having to marry 'us' in your church' is ridiculous.
And for the record, being Gay or Lesbian is nothing less than a gift from God.
What you are saying here is that seperate but equal seems OK for the UK. Perfect!
This ain't the UK, Dalitso Njolinjo. It's the USA. Where EVERYONE is promised EQUAL protection under the LAW.
Go peddle your goods elsewhere. I ain't buyuing your load of crap for 2 seconds.
“They should steer this debate away from religion and make it about equal civil rights and make it into a debate on the separation of church and state. “
It is not “they” (Gays/Lesbians) who need to “steer this debate away from religion.” It is “they” who use religion to deny gays/lesbians equal rights who need to do so.
The areas of law as pertains to separation of church and state are muddy in the area of marriage, that is for sure.
“Marriage” as a term is kindof what society considers a “normal” union between two people. To redefine that term to include two gay people or more than two people (when the polygamists get their day in Court) is making “anything goes” mainstream.
Which as I've said before may be fine with some people, just not the majority of people.
Civil unions need to extend all the same rights as marriage to people without using the term “marriage”. Marriage is an arrangement for the hopes of procreation and child rearing. I suspect that access to children is the real reason behind why gays are lobbying so fiercely. Currently adoption for gay couples can be a dicey issue with many denied based on the fact that society has not “legitimized' their relationship under the umbrella of recognized marriage. So in order to access adoptable children, gays want to be married.
I'm pretty sure that's what the fuss is really all about.
And again, I think it's interesting to note that many homosexuals are adamantly opposed to polygamist heterosexuals getting the same access to marriage that they want. So I'm a little baffled?
“And again, I think it's interesting to note that many homosexuals are adamantly opposed to polygamist heterosexuals getting the same access to marriage that they want. So I'm a little baffled? Isn't is supposed to be all about “consenting adults in love”?”
No it is about allowing the same rights and responsibilities to all people. A heterosexual can enter into a civil or religious union with a consenting adult of their choice (provided neither are married). Yet that same ability is not extended to people in homosexual relationships. The Constitution provides equal protection under the law. Laws that prevent one type of civil unions (same sex) while allowing others (heterosexual) are in violation of Equal Protection. Allowing civil unions rather than civil marriage is essentially 'separate but equal'. That didn't fly during the Civil Rights era and it shouldn't work now.
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Separation of church and state is something of a myth in a democracy where many voters are religious. People inevitably vote their beliefs, and thus those beliefs become a matter of public interest and subject to challenge.
What's really at stake for gays is not the legal contract of marriage but the social one–the option to enter recognized relationships that receive community support, and their responsibilities to settle down, act married, and support the community in return. Gays are fighting for first-class citizenship, so separate-but-equal demonstrably doesn't cut it.
What's at stake for the right is their freedom to believe homosexuality is immoral. By challenging conservatives to defend that belief in public, by not allowing them to dictate how the word “marriage” gets used, and ultimately by disproving predictions that gay marriage will cause the sky to fall, gays are taking away some of conservatives' room to believe themselves a higher moral caste.
The author brings up some interesting points, for sure, but it seems that he has a very limited understanding of the situation here.
For example, we do NOT have a federal law that states that same-sex unions (called marriage or not), should have the same rights as married couples. In fact, for every state that does permit some rights for same-sex couples, the list of rights conferred is different, and almost all are different from the rights enjoyed by married opposite sex couples. In some states, gay couples can't adopt children, and there were even sodomy laws on the books in some states until just a few years ago.
For those couples lucky enough to live in a state where marriage is legal, neither the federal government nor other states are required to recognize that marriage as legal. A straight married couple can move from the US to any other country and still be considered a married couple by the government, but a LEGALLY married couple from Massachusettes cannot be recognized as such by the federal government nor most other states. An example: in Switzerland, same-sex couples are recognized. Two of my friends got a domestic partnership in California, then moved to Switzerland, where they were recognized by their government as legally married. Yet if they moved to almost any other state in THIS country, their union wouldn't be recognized.
It should be noted that it is NOT the LGBT community trying to turn this into some sort of religious argument. That is all on the anti side. As one other commenter points out, gay people also come in Christian flavor (and Muslim, and Mormon, and atheist, etc). The argument about whether or not churches have to marry gay people if marriage is legal is so dumb on so many levels. Churches don't have to marry STRAIGHT couples if they don't want to. The Catholic church won't marry couples that have been divorced, Mormon churches won't marry anyone not Mormon, and I've heard of many a young Christian couple that has had to lie about their virginity status so as to have their priest agree to marry them. Why anyone would think that the ability of churches to decide whose marriages they want to perform would change in some way due to gays legally getting hitched is beyond me.
To Sil's point about the word “marriage” signifying some sort of “normal” relationship: simply not true. The word marriage has a different meaning in every culture, every language, and the idea of marriage was around thousands of years before English as a language even came into being. In some cultures, it has meant polygamy, in some it has meant manogamy, in some, there was even room for homosexual marriage. Even if we only look at marriage in the United States since the country came to be, the word “marriage” has gone from a business transaction between two men in which property (the bride) goes from one (daddy) to another (hubby) for a price (dowry), where the two getting married weren't allowed to sleep together before the wedding, where the two HAD to be from the same race and class, etc — to now, when it's considered a poor decision to marry if you are not in love, when you can marry the person of your choosing despite the religion, family background, race, age, etc. Unless, of course, you happen to fall in love with someone of your own gender. So don't give me this “marriage as tradition” crap.
What's at stake for the right is their freedom to believe homosexuality is immoral. By challenging conservatives
Hey, Doctore, you need to watch your unmodified nouns here…….”social” conservative if you would please.
I campaigned for AuH2O, so I do get to call myself conservative, but as far as I'm concerned, the LG community can do whatever they wish so long as it does not infringe upon my rights, property or pocketbook.
You are reinforcing the lefty propaganda that conservatism is defined by social beliefs.
I stand corrected, CO. Since we're talking about a social issue, I figured _social_ conservative was obvious. My apologies.
“And again, I think it's interesting to note that many homosexuals are adamantly opposed to polygamist heterosexuals getting the same access to marriage that they want. So I'm a little baffled? Isn't is supposed to be all about “consenting adults in love”?”
Again Sil, you're lying again. Most homosexuals and heterosexuals too are against polygamist pedophilia well, pedophilia in general not just polygamist versions of it.
So please just stop lying.
I'm not talking about pedophilia, I'm talking about polygamy. Rambie, your post is about the most misleading one I've seen so far. It is you who are lying and putting words in people's mouths and attempting to divert the subject with alarming phantom-allegations…
I'm talking about, as you well know, polygamy among CONSENTING ADULTS. I even told a story of three I met while on vacation and how all three CONSENTING ADULTS IN LOVE were quite sublimely happy together. If gays object to this situation, they they are hypocrites, pure and simple. And many did and still do.
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The gay marriage issue at its roots is about access to children. Adoption is the one access that pops to mind right at the start..
No, gay marriage is not about access to children, any more than it's about trying to one-up the polygamists.
Gay couples who want children can have them already through a variety of means, with nothing like the hassle of trying to win marriage rights.
I think Gay's or Lesbians should be allowed the same legal rights as Hetro couples. I think the problem stems from calling that Marriage. The Bible says Marriage is betweena Man and a Woman. Just call it something else and it will draw much less flack in my opinion. Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.
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