While I understand the motivation behind the push for domestic partnerships and civil unions, I can’t support them. I learned today that New Mexico is one step closer to granting domestic partnerships to same-sex couples and while I’m excited for those couples which will (hopefully) soon have more rights and responsibilities, I think I threw up in my mouth a little while reading.
On the 2007 Right To Marry campaign, Curtis Peterson summed it up nicely when he said:
“What we risk is devaluing the institution of marriage when we begin taking it a part piecemeal through the proliferation of civil unions and domestic partnerships which same- and opposite-sex couples can be a part of. There is a group of people who are saying: we believe in this institution and we want to be a part of it. Marriage equality strengthens marriage.”
I agree with him: domestic partnerships are cheap. Cheap for straight people who don’t want to fully commit to marriage, cheap for gay people who are offered only these scraps.
We had medical professionals who reiterated the scientific evidence that GLBT families were just as loving and capable and produced “normal” children just like every other family. We had faith leaders who spoke about the virtues of acceptance. There was the 13 year-old daughter of a lesbian couple who pleaded with the committee to take actions to protect her family.
I won’t ask my lawmakers to give that daughter a second-rate family, she deserves a fully recognized one. I won’t ask those faith leaders to bless a consolation prize of a union, they should be able to grant marriages as their consciences dictate. There are families who need insurance, estates that need protection from taxes, travel plans that need to become uncomplicated, and hospital visits that need to be routine. But the one thing a nation with a soaring divorce rate doesn’t need are half-hearted unions. This country is aching for marriage equality.
Lawmakers in New Mexico are offering me a seat on the back of the bus, I’d rather walk.
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Nicely put, Brian – and an argument well worth making. Mind if I steal your phrasing sometime? *grins* Take care.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:18 am
Cheap… good description. If there is anything that “cheapens” the definition of marriage it is domestic partnerships. The fact that gay people want to take part in marriage should be nothing but praise for the institution. When politicians fight for domestic partnerships, we are in essence saying, “Marriage isn’t important, because you can have the same rights (or at least part of the rights) under something that doesn’t even measure up to marriage.” Thanks for the post Brian. Sorry I covered it up with the Ledger post. Oh, I’m still so sad.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Thanks Casey, go right ahead… I’d be flattered. I trust you’re holding down the house in CA, I’m doing my best over here!
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:54 am
(shrug) Then walk.
Furthermore, that poor little thirteen-year-old girl should be asked why, if her family “needs” those benefits and protections so much, why her mommies won’t accept them in any form other than one that they can wave in the face of religious people and use to offend them.
Or why her mommies had her in the first place when they claim their family conditions are so intolerable that children are harmed by living in them.
Or why, if these benefits and protections are so vital to gay survival, how gays like Brian can afford the luxury of refusing them because they’re not in the form that they want.
And if divorce rates bother you so much, Brian, pass laws that tighten down the requirements for them first.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
[...] I don’t support domestic partnerships, preferring to support, encourage, and protect marriage by extending the rights and [...]