By Maisha Elonai
Major California newspapers covered the “wedding” of
two Vermont women on July 2, but the headlines were somewhat
misleading.
Carolyn Conrad and Kathleen Peterson were the first of many
same-sex couples to enter into a civil union on July 1 under new
Vermont legislation that allows committed same-sex couples hundreds
of the same legal benefits accorded to heterosexual couples.
For gay rights activists, these unions may feel like a huge step
toward equal recognition of same-sex relationships under the law.
But the near-marriages really fall at the beginning of the Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community’s long-term war for
equality in this country.
As Mitra Ebadolahi wrote in her column, “Anti-gay ban,
rhetoric warp constitution” (June 17), “on nearly every
front, gay rights have been successfully attacked by private
organizations, individuals and even states.”
I couldn’t agree with her more. Extremists can perpetuate
ridiculous stereotypes of gays and lesbians because few Americans
are familiar with the LGBT community ““ and few individuals
care.
The majority of voters are uneducated or apathetic toward gay
rights issues, so it is no surprise that federal legislation does
not exist to protect discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation. Subsequently, job discrimination like the kind cited
by Ebadolahi cannot be regulated.
And the Boy Scouts aren’t the only ones to attack the LGBT
community.
Recently in the military, the slaying of a gay private went
unpunished although, according to a Reuters news service wire
story, “the Army’s inspector general found troublesome
anti-homosexual attitudes among some members of the gay
victim’s Army company”
Source dailynews.yahoo.com 7/19/00.
But the broadest attack society has made against the LGBT
community has been made on the state and federal level in the
struggle over legalizing same-sex marriage.
Vermont is still the only state in the entire nation to offer
the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples.
Of course, it only offers the “benefits” of
marriage. Matrimony itself, and all the psychological and societal
comforts associated with it, is still banned in all 50 states to
anyone with the misfortune to love a partner of their own sex, even
though some churches willingly perform ceremonies for same-sex
couples.
This restriction hardly seems fair, considering the U.S. Supreme
Court has described marriage as “a right of privacy older
than the Bill of Rights –older than our political parties, older
than our school system,” “a harmony in living, not
political faiths” and “a bilateral loyalty”
(Zablocki v. Redhail, 1978).
By this very description, it would seem to be a violation of
fundamental rights to deny marriage to any consenting couple of
legal age. Yet conservative individuals and private organizations
continue to justify such discrimination against the LGBT community
with moral and religious claims.
Of course, their defenses overlook the fact that, in the public
sector, the U.S. government ultimately cannot allow moral or
religious arguments to obstruct the fair administration of
justice.
We live in a nation supposedly founded on principles of
tolerance. This means that people of all kinds ““ from
Buddhists to members of the Ku Klux Klan ““ are afforded equal
rights.
But it is not “equal” that in all fifty states, a
specific group of citizens are prohibited from legally calling the
person they are mentally, emotionally and physically committed to
their husband or wife.
It is not “equal” that in states without domestic
partnership legislation, zoning laws further prohibit these couples
from living in “families only” housing.
Nor is it “equal” that most committed same-sex
partners in the United States are not allowed tax benefits,
hospital visitation rights, the ability to create a marital life
estate trust, or the ability to resolve divorces in a court of
law.
Yet these are rights traditionally allowed to heterosexual
couples in analogous relationships. The results of such
discrimination toward the LGBT community have not been widely
studied, but they must be psychologically and economically
traumatizing.
Individual examples prove this to be true. The Human Rights
Campaign lists stories of committed couples who encountered
financially and emotionally exhausting legal battles just to visit
a dying, hospitalized partner. Other committed couples could tell
heart-rending tales concerning the effects of their inability to
resolve break-ups in a court of law. They could discuss both the
complexity of maintaining custody of their genetic child and the
economic hardships incurred because they cannot gain benefits from
employers for their partners.
Like less comprehensive domestic partnership legislation in
other states, the new civil union legislation in Vermont only
begins to address this widespread discrimination against a group of
people who, by some estimates, comprise 10 percent of the
country’s population.
But legislation only begins to fix this national problem.
Until every state in the United States recognizes the right of
same-sex couples to be legally married ““ not just committed
““ until legislation, taxes, and benefits are applied to all
citizens regardless of their sexual orientation; and until the
stigma of gay relationships just is a bad memory for most
Americans, we are perpetuating prejudice and injustice harmful to a
specific group of people.
All citizens of the United States, regardless of their sexual
orientation, should be aware of this bastion of discrimination in
our country.
The Human Rights Campaign and its explanation of issues such as
legalization of same-sex marriages can be found at: http://www.hrc.org/mainset_issues.asp.