Simple biology might be the undoing of Proposition 8's definition of marriage as being between a man or a woman. That is, if votes, courts, demonstrations or just plain common sense doesn't get there first.
What's that? What can be more simple and obvious than that simple sentence "Marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman"?
Reading through the BBC today, I came upon this gem. Simply put, gender can be ambiguous. "Male" and "female" are not clear cut concepts. What about transgendered individuals such as the "man" in the article who is pregnant? What about those whose sex chromosomes don't conform to the standard XX for women or XY for men? Who decides who is qualified to marry whom? Getting a marriage license in California could involve a lot more than dropping one's drawers.
In the BBC article, a "man" is pregnant and about to deliver his second "miracle baby." A closer look shows a transgendered man, formerly a woman, who retained the female plumbing in order to be able to bear a child. He is legally male and is married to a biological female. Usually he takes a regimen of male hormones to maintain his maleness, but he stopped in order to have the babies. So is he still legally male? Would their marriage be recognized by California law?
There are other less intentional variations on gender. Some people are just born ambiguous. Sometimes they have an extra sex chromosome, maybe instead of being an XY male or an XX female, there is an extra X or and extra Y. An extra Y can make men more aggressive, more "male." But what about an XXY? Would that person be legally "female" or "male"? Would s/he be able to marry either an XY man or an XX woman, as preference dictates? And if so, what questions does that raise about his/her rights of marital choice as opposed to those of other less genetically endowed people?
Sometimes the sex chromosomes are clearly "normal" but the body doesn't match. The genetics show an XY "male" but the body develops as a "female" when androgen insensitivity comes into play. Here is a more complete look at the genetic implications.
What does it mean to be male or female? Is it how you look? What if facial features and body type are ambiguous? Will a judge have to screen genitalia to be sure that the right parts are there? What if they aren't? Will the premarital blood test now include gender determination? Will people who don't conform to the norm be refused licenses? That sounds a lot like discrimination. The mind boggles at the implications.
It's disturbing enough that the LDS church has prodded the law to look into California bedrooms before granting marriage licenses. Will the church now lobby to look into our pants or, even worse, our very DNA before granting a one man, one woman marriage license? I find it plenty scary having a church try to twist our laws to conform to their bias. I don't want to see them trying to practice biology.
So if the courts fail and the demonstrations fail and the legislative efforts fail, or even if they don't, marriage equality has a new rallying cry:
"Keep your laws out of my drawers!"