Archive: Opinions

I usually understand both sides of political arguments.  But there is one issue that I don't understand: that of equal rights for gay and lesbian couples.  I believe the debate has been hijacked by useless and passionate discussion about so-called gay marriage.  But I don't understand how what you decide to call 'marriage' has to do with civil rights.  And I don't understand why this isn't an issue conservatives can get behind.

I tend toward the conservative.  I know, I know -- it's guache for a journalist.  But to me equal rights for committed couples is a basic American right.  'All men are created equal' doesn't mean 'some people are equal and others not so much'.  It means everybody.  That is a conservative value.

So why can't committed gay people receive death benefits or have spousal rights in hospitals or any of the rest of the things heterosexual married couples can have?  Benefits for their children, public housing, protection from testifying against each other, joint home insurance... it is just plain cruel to deny a person access to the person they love and have made some kind of life commitment to.  And not at all conservative.

It's not all ducks and bunnies.  Shouldn't same-sex partners be responsible for their partner's debts as a married spouse is?   Alimony?  It's not just about benefits.  It's about responsibilities, which also come with equal rights.

The problem is 'gay marriage'.  Whether you are for it or against it, there is an issue of semantics.  'Marriage' has traditionally meant a contract between a man and a woman, and to many people it still does.  So why not call same-sex unions 'civil union' or something else that is agreeable in the sense of legally defining another kind of relationship for which equal benefits are triggered?  Or 'legally committed relationships'?  Or 'hefalumps'?  Define it in a way that allows Americans to live as Americans.

Because dispensing equal rights is about a legal definition that enables benefits.  And the piece of marriage that triggers those benefits and rights and responsibilities is that a marriage is a legal commitment between two people, recognized by the government.  'People' is the word that should trigger rights in this country.  Not 'gay', not 'straight', not (fill in a color or race here), not 'disabled', not any adjective.  This is about a noun.  'People'.  Gay people are people.  I'm a person, so I know what a person is.  I have never met a gay person who wasn't a person.  Have you?

Historically it has been adjectives that get us in trouble in this country.  Adjectives lable things that, perhaps, should not be labeled.  We should all take Mark Twain's advice: 'As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.' Our English teachers taught us that.  Why don't we listen?

Even if you see same-sex unions as a sin, where does it say in the Constitution that law-abiding sinners don't get to have rights?  Religions have historically defined good nd bad people.  Governements are not supposed to be able to do that.  Instead they define laws, and it may be fair to say that those who break them are bad people, but it is more accurate to call them criminals.  They don't lose their rights because of what they are.  They lose them because of what they did.

I am not saying that the 'gay marriage' debate isn't legitimate.  I am simply saying that it should be separate from the equal rights debate so it doesn't muddy the real issues that impact law abiding Americans who work and pay taxes.  What you call it is far less important than how our government dispenses the most fundamental thing Americans are brought up to expect.  First thing's first.  Clean up the inequity and then argue over what to call it.

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