Palm Springs for Gay Men: On Gay Marriage and Civil Union

By Gymbrat, Your Webmaster

Addendum, written in mid-2004:

Since I wrote the original essay (below) in mid-2003, much has happened. There are actual gay marriages around, both those from Massachusetts, and the foreign ones from Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, and soon-to-be Spain.

The let's-see-if-it-works marriages from many other American states, including those here in California, appear to have been summarily dissolved by high courts. Those makeshift marriages caused protests to reach a crescendo in the Religious Reich, but when nobody listened the furor was reduced to a whisper. Then, when our President needed unthinking Stormtroopers to insure his reelection, he whipped the old emotions to a frenzy by November 2 2004. Since then the issue is again quiet.

Rest assured, gay unions (called "marriage" or not) will come everywhere, step by step, for better or worse. I stand by my essay; I am not sucked in by the marriage-word controversy; a civil union called just that is fine with me. Even the Religious Reich's misbegotten Constitutional amendment (which, of course, will go nowhere) would make civil unions the legal alternative.

Our civil union law in California actually got teeth on January 1 2005 and became a marriage equivalence in California as far as the state goes. Please study our other essay (Our Domestic Partnership Law) and see that it is actually a real marriage in all but name. He is in debt = you are in debt. His family = your inlaws. Breaking up = go to divorce court and face lawyers and alimony. Not just fun and games these days; this is the real thing. Which makes 50% of straight marriages fail. Maybe we'll do better, maybe not. If you are considering getting into a domestic relationship, please think through it. It is a major decision these days. If you're not 100% sure you have lifelong intentions, you may not want to enter into a formal partnership at this time. Think about it. Of course you can still stay together for life without the formal protection of the law - written contracts between the two of you can do much of what a domestic partnership does automatically.

However, if you are really committed to each other, really feel like one, it will be wonderful to have a union that really means that you are a couple, in good times and bad, in sickness and health, til death do you part. My congratulations: I have had two real commitments in my life; those days were wonderful, and each of them lasted until death did us part. Without any civil unions or marriage.

Updated 12/31/04

And now to the original essay, written in mid-2003:

Gay marriage has been discussed and debated for years, and interesting as the discussion has been, it has mostly occurred within our community. The majority has been distinctly for gay marriage, and rightly so. Our voices have been loud enough to scare the general population into enacting the "Defence of Marriage Act" and various man/woman reaffirmations on the state levels. That ended their attention span, and they went back to Iraq and the looming deficit.

But then came Lawrence vs Texas, where the Supreme Court finally decriminalized us, and immediately gay marriage again became the talk of the town. The media placed this issue right in everybody's face, and the people suddenly got scared: Hello, this might actually happen! The supporting percentage in the polls fell quickly by some 10 percent, from about even to a distinct minority.

Any discussion invariably turns to religion: The bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. End of discussion. (The bible actually does not say "a woman": most biblical men had multiple wives, but we are not here for religious quarrels.)

So, how about civil unions, like those in Vermont? They are not marriages, but they do the same thing as marriage (on the state level only, but for the sake of discussion let's use Vermont here). That is a "separate but equal" situation, which we all know did not work on the race issue and would not work on the gay marriage issue. Again end of discussion.

Not so fast.

What precisely is marriage? There are two separate, though related, applications of the concept of marriage, one religious and one legal. Most people apply the two at the same time: first they have a church ceremony which seals their union in the face of God, and then they run to city hall and have a civil ceremony which seals their union in the face of the law. Some people never make it to the church, only to city hall, and by golly, they wind up married as well. And again, some people get married in a church and don't bother with city hall, and they are also married. (Among the latter ones we find some gay couples here and there as well -- nobody tries to stop them because the debate is not about that.) This is all very confusing, and, as much in this world, confusion ofter occurs due to ambiguous words, words that can mean different things. The word "marriage" means different things.

For this discussion we will now use the word "marriage" for the union of two people in the face of God, and "civil union" for the union of two people in the face of the law. A straight couple usually attends two ceremonies: a religious marriage ceremony and a legal civil union ceremony. What irks most people is the demand by same-gender couples for "marriage", interpreted to mean a religious marriage, which has a traditional and sacred meaning. Our distinction of the two words here makes it clear that it is not a (religious) marriage that gay couples want -- they want a (legal) civil union, the same civil union that straight couples are entitled to get in a city hall ceremony. If they also want a (religious) marriage ceremony in some church, that is entirely up to the church, not the law, to decide, and nobody would want to force the church to say no (or yes) to such a request.

So, after all, "civil union" is not a "separate but equal" concept. What almost all people, straight or gay, want is the legal status provided by the civil union (taxes and inheritance and hospital rights and the works). Some people, straight and gay, also want a religious marriage ceremony (festivities and memories and such), but that part is not under discussion anywhere. If the laws did not discriminate against same-gender couples and instead allow us to get the civil union status like any straight couple, then we would be equal in the face of the law, and that is all we ask for. The religious part will take care of itself with no help or objection from the law.

We have found a great little list that summarizes the current major legal differences between being unmarried and being married. The unmarried disadvantages include the following items:
  • Fewer Job Benefits Companies subsidize benefits for employees' spouses and kids. But unmarried workers don't get compensated in some other form to make up the difference. For spouses, benefits are tax-free. For domestic partners, benefits get taxed.
  • Higher Unemployment, Lower Pay Unemployment for unmarried people with children under 18 was 9.1% in 2002 vs just 3.8% for married workers with kids. Never-married men also make less than married men.
  • Higher Taxes Unmarried partners can't file joint returns. They also get a smaller capital-gains break when they sell their houses.
  • Lower Social Security and Unemployment Benefits Everybody pays these taxes, but surviving spouses can collect half of a deceased worker's benefits, whereas domestic partners can't. Many marrieds can also collect unemployment if they quit to move with a relocated spouse.
  • No Estate-Tax Breaks Married people can leave spouses everything, tax-free. But estates of unmarrieds worth more than $675,000 are taxed at 25% to 60%.
  • Transfer Taxes Transfers of property to a spouse are not taxable. Transfers to domestic partners are.
  • Marital Status Redlining Many insurance companies put married drivers into a low-risk category and unmarried drivers into a high-risk one.
  • Family Discounts Most country clubs, health clubs, and auto clubs allow a spouse to join free of charge or at a steep discount. But unmarried partners must pay for two memberships.
  • No Victim's Rights Protection If a drunk driver kills a married partner, the surviving spouse can sue for wrongful death. But unmarried surviving partners have no legal recourse.
  • Credit and Housing Discrimination Unmarried joint applicants are sometimes offered credit on less favorable terms than married counterparts. Many states do not bar marital status discrimination in rental housing, allowing landlords to refuse to rent to unmarried tenants.
  • Lack of Citizenship Rights for Same-Sex Partners Fifteen countries recognize same-sex couples for immigration. But U.S. citizens in relationships with same-sex foreigners cannot sponsor their partners.
Sources: American Association for Single People, Lesbian & Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, Business Week

About a year after my posting of this essay, a Gordon E Parks of Whitewater WI wrote a letter to the editor of The Atlantic, which was printed it its June 2004 issue. It says basically the same thing as I did, but with much more elegance, with much fewer words:

"... Why not let legislatures redefine all existing government-sanctioned "marriages" as "civil unions" and recognize marriage as a religious matter over which they have no authority? Let states establish procedures and regulations for the formation of civil unions. Let churches establish such rules as they deem appropriate for the marriages they sanction. And let those who want to be "married", whether in the Roman catholic way, or the Conservative Jewish way, or the Methodist way, or the Latter-day Saints way, or whatever way, go to their respective religious societies and get married - just as they go to pray, to get baptized, confirmed, or bar mitzvahed, to confess sins, or to take communion. The sacred institution of marriage will then be safely in the hands of the churches, and the rest of us can manage our private lives as we wish."

Send me e-mail comments in this matter, and I will publish them right here, with your e-mail address included only if you specifically say so.
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