If you're going to San Francisco...

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that while I was in San Francisco, the weather cleared up and I stayed a little later than I'd planned. One of the things I did with that time, while I was driving around looking for Haight-Ashbury, was try to find City Hall. The gay marriage explosion had just recently hit the papers, and I read about the lines and thought I'd try to catch a glimpse for myself of this sure-to-be-newsworthy event. I drove by a large, official-looking building at one point, but there were no crowds and I don't think it was City Hall. I didn't say I tried all that hard.

Anyway, I was right about it being newsworthy, since 2004 turned into the Year of Gay Marriage Debate. While the San Francisco effort collapsed into futility and all those marriage certificates were ruled to be nothing more than pretty pieces of paper, the State Supreme Court of Massachusetts paved the way for the real thing up north and kicked up a hornets' nest.

I've known very few gay people, and none that were "married", so I'm no expert on this issue by any means, but here are a couple of my thoughts for and against recognizing gay marriage.
First, the cons:
1) Against: The word "marriage" has denoted the union of a man and a woman for hundreds of years, in all but the most fringe of groups. Even in polygamist circles, the women don't marry each other, but the man. Why dilute the meaning of the word? Isn't it better to use another term, like civil union?
2) Against: Marriage began as a religious institution, and, as evidenced by the reaction of the country to all this movement on the issue, it stirs up a lot of emotion based on religious convictions that are not easily assuaged or changed. Forcing the issue will cause a lot of bitterness and resentment at a time when the general public is adopting more tolerance for homosexuality.
3) Against: In Canada, shortly after they began allowing gay marriage, two women decided it wasn't working out and discovered there were no laws by which they could divorce. When divorce laws are adapted to gay marriage, will the same reasoning apply? For instance, will a man owe another man alimony despite the fact that he doesn't face the same working issues a woman might?
Now, the pros:
1) For: By recognizing gay marriage, we would be removing a very visible case of discrimination by the U.S. government. The opposite is true as well: if an amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage is ratified, we would be enshrining discrimination once again (after so much struggle to remove other instances of it) in the country's most important document protecting the rights of its citizens. And it is discrimination, by definition, in that it treats one group of people (gays) differently from another group (straights). It doesn't matter how large or small the group of people is, equality is equality.
2) For: "Separate but equal" has a history in this country, and it's not a good one. Civil unions could be used to institutionally deprive married gays of some rights under the cover of granting others. Or they could simply be commonly perceived as somehow less legitimate than marriages, which isn't acceptable either.
3) For: Marriage makes for more stable families, regardless of sexual orientation. Two loving parents are always better than one. It's also harder to walk away from a long-term relationship when there are legal consequences than when there are not, and people typically put more thought into it in the beginning and work harder to salvage a marriage.

You may have noticed I don't question the idea that homosexuals have a right to some kind of marriage-like arrangement under the law. I find it a little bit ironic that many religious conservatives would prefer that homosexual marriage not be permitted on religious grounds, but since some churches are willing to marry them, they settle for using the state to enforce their views.

Personally, I think that pushing for "marriage" instead of settling for civil unions may alienate so many Americans that homosexuals may lose their chance to gain many of the rights they believe marriage would entitle them to. I find it repugnant that a family that shunned a gay family member all their adult life could swoop in upon his or her death to claim an estate promised to his or her partner, or that a hospital would refuse to allow visitation because they weren't family, regardless of how long they had been "married". Those are the two horror stories cited by proponents that stick out in my mind, and I have no doubt they have been a common problem in this country for many years.

Which is why I think this, like most if not all marriage law, should remain an issue left to the states. That leaves open the possibility of one state not respecting the marriage laws of another, but it would at least also present an opportunity, like the one in Massachussets now, for gays to find equality somewhere in America. They're not the first group to have to look for it.