Richard Mouw’s My Turn article in Newsweek Feb 9, 2009 (Less Shouting, More Talking) asks us to have a more civil discourse on the issue of gay civil rights. Mouw voted Yes on California’s Proposition 8 to take away gay and lesbian Americans’ civil rights, and now he’s surprised that we’re mad. He says he’s saddened by the angry shouts, the shaken fists. "C’mon, can’t we just talk about this?"
OK, let’s talk. But let’s start with a little more balanced perspective, a more fair playing field. How about if all the Mouws of the world give up their special rights and live in my world for a while, a world where my heterosexual children don’t have the same rights as his children? Perhaps that would give Mouw and others a little Christian compassion for their fellow citizens. Gay equality isn’t really about the word "marriage," it’s about fairness, civil rights, money and family security. Perhaps if Mouw couldn’t visit his partner in a hospital or if his insurance didn’t cover his wife’s health care, he’d have a sense of what same sex families face every day. He might be fighting mad if he couldn’t put his wife’s name on the deed to their house without his family having to pay federal taxes on his own equity (unlike straight married couples), or if he couldn’t give his children his hard earned retirement package when he dies, but only a lump sum as a beneficiaries (which could be as low as one fifth of the retirement package’s full value), or if a court could take away his kids when his co-parent dies because he’s not "legally married" to her, yet that same court could make him pay child support if he and their biological parent break up! That’s right, gay and lesbian parents have financial responsibility for their children, without having the associated rights to protect their families. If we voted away those "special rights" Mr. Mouw has, maybe he and other evangelicals would understand the impact of their narrow-minded attacks on same sex families and their children.
When I was a young woman striving for gay equality and hoping my great country would rise to the occasion as we did with the black civil rights movement, my mother used to advise me to not get too invested, not hope too much for change. She would remind me of our other great civil rights struggles, those of American women and African Americans. Perhaps Mr. Mouw and other evangelicals need a little history lesson about the slow but inexorable process of change in our country.
The women’s suffrage movement in our country officially started in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Charlotte Woodward attended that convention as a nineteen year old. Seventy years later, in 1920, when women finally won the vote throughout the nation, Charlotte Woodward was the only participant in the 1848 Convention who was still alive. Those great Americans spent their whole lives struggling for equality, and were belittled, attacked, ostracized and even jailed for their efforts. Why did our country finally achieve women’s suffrage? Partly because states wanted to double their number of citizens and increase their political clout in Congress. What a terrible legacy! Thousands of Americans who dedicated their lives to the suffrage movement died before achieving equality. Even after women were finally "given" the right to vote in our country, the struggle for equality continued. As with the struggle for gay equality, the majority (male voters) justified their oppression of women with biblical and "traditional" excuses.
The black civil rights movement had it’s own set of roadblocks. Slavery was abolished in 1865, but it took another hundred years until our Supreme Court finally struck down anti-miscegenation marriage laws that had been justified by "tradition" and religion. In fact, the bible was often cited as justification for oppressing blacks. Around the time of my birth, an interracial Virginia couple, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, were legally married in the District of Columbia. The Lovings were arrested and plead guilty to violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. The judge stated in his opinion that: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." The court actually argued that it was the duty of the state to protect marriage as a public institution. Sound familiar?
The problem is, one can use the bible and traditions to justify any racist, misogynist or homophobic opinion. In dealing with religious obstructionists, the wisdom of the people who founded our nation comes to mind. There were, and are, very good reasons why religion should be a personal matter and not connected in any way with civic law.
Today, the Catholic and Mormon churches both claim to be protecting "traditional marriage" in their bigoted fight against equality for gays, based on their reading of the bible. Yet today’s marriage is anything but traditional. Marriage has run the gamut from 1) Polygamy (Mormon tradition), 2) Forced marriage for business (very common across the world, connects two families financially) 3) Marriages without the possibility of divorce (Catholic tradition), 4) Marriage for money (dowry, most traditions), 5) Anti-miscegeny (no interracial marriage for most of our country’s history). Which of those "traditional marriages" do the churches claim to be protecting? None of them. The scant fifty years of America’s current version of marriage (the one where divorce is allowed, children can’t be sold to adult men, and people of different races can actually marry) is hardly long enough to call "traditional."
Historically, major social change in America has come about with a combination of grassroots effort and political demands culminating in top-down, federal solutions. After a hundred years of ongoing oppression, the raised fist and the shouted demand for equality by black Americans and their supporters finally resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If Lincoln hadn't signed the Emancipation Proclamation, or Harry Truman hadn't integrated the military, or Pres. Lyndon Johnson hadn't signed the Civil Rights Act, we’d still be mired in all those civil conflicts. Progress is made not through unity, but by more people coming to favor progress than those who oppose it. Gay rights, like the black civil movement before it, will eventually win out. We’re at the same impasse we experienced in the 1950s when people said it was too soon, society wasn’t ready, the issue was too heated and emotional. It wasn’t until good Americans took a stand, angrily raising their fists and demanding equality, that Congress was forced to pass the Civil Rights Act. The same will happen with gay rights. Good Americans will eventually demand our government abide by constitutional principals of equality for all Americans. And you, sir, will be on the wrong side of history.
In reminding me of our country’s great and long civil rights fights, my mother didn’t mean to temper my enthusiasm, she just didn’t want to see me disappointed by the eventual setbacks our gay and lesbian movement would encounter. When I was young, I couldn’t envision the amount of time and effort it would take to achieve equality. I believed in our American ideals and our constitutional protections. Now I’m a middle aged woman with two children and a same sex co-parent. And you, Mr. Mouw, just voted away my civil rights and those of my children as well. How dare you use the bible to justify such an oppressive and bigoted attack! As a parent, I’d lay down my life for my children. You think I shouldn’t shake my fist and shout as I demand equal rights for my family? If you want civil discourse, don’t vote away my civil rights.
Mouw claims that "normalizing" same-sex marriage could lead to a "slippery slope" of multiple partner marriages. This tired, intellectually bankrupt argument sounds scary but has already been dealt with by the refutation of Mormon "traditional" polygamous marriages. In fact, polygamy has more to do with the false concepts of "traditional marriage" than it has to do with same sex relationship. The "slippery slope" nonsense is a red herring argument that distracts us from talking about the real problem - religion obstructionism that hurts millions of same sex couples in America who simply want the same rights as other families. At least Mouw didn’t resort to the other common affront from religious leaders who insinuate that marriage equality will lead to forced acceptance of sex with animals. Do they even think about what they’re saying when they rudely insult upstanding American families like ours? That kind of nonsense is exactly what makes normally calm gays and lesbians shake our fists and loudly demand an end to this oppression. Mr. Mouw, you are entitled to your opinion, you can think we’re abnormal, you can believe the bible says we’re wrong or evil, you can even tell yourself that your relationship or family is better than mine, but you are not entitled to more rights than I am. Not in this country.
Winning equal rights won’t gain gays and lesbians acceptance, just like racism wasn’t ended by the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. But the law changed the face of racial politics in our country, and the same will eventually happen for gay families. Many religious people fought against the CRA, others fought to keep miscegeny laws in force, and to keep slavery legal. Segregationists used the Bible to support slavery the same way the fundamentalists use the Bible as a cudgel against gays. In the end, in spite of all their hate, of all their donations to groups that try to demonize minorities, they lost. Prop 8 will be overturned because the US Constitution says we’re all equal. You can force us to the back of the bus, but it’s only temporary. We will never stop fighting for equality.
As President Obama said: "We are not a gay America or a straight America, we are all Americans..." Gays and lesbians are never going to stop demanding equality, nor should they, just as African Americans kept pushing for black civil rights. The rights of an oppressed minority should never be subject to popular vote. Popular vote (and public opinion) is precisely what gave us slavery and institutionalized racism in the first place. Same sex couples pay taxes, go to work and raise kids, just like heterosexual Americans. We deserve nothing short of full equality, and like the other civil rights movements, we’ll fight until the federal government reaffirms the equal rights guaranteed by our Constitution. In the end, you and other evangelicals and fundamentalists will lose because this country is greater than your religious bigotry.