The best fringe benefit of being a lawyer in Maine is the ability to perform marriages, because when you conduct a wedding ceremony you really do have the best seat in the house. You’re the only one there who gets to watch not only the bride and groom but also, just beyond them, the faces of all the invited guests. It really is a remarkable vantage point, because it lets you appreciate the unbridled joy a wedding brings to the family and friends who have gathered to celebrate it.
A wedding is indeed a joyous occasion and every bit of that happiness should be guaranteed every citizen in Maine, regardless of sexual orientation. For this reason, more than any other, Maine should adopt the gay marriage bill currently pending in the Legislature.
Dealing with this important issue now will not side-track us from our pressing economic concerns as some people suggest — I’m guessing our legislators really can walk and chew gum at the same time. Nor does the issue need the exhaustive debate our governor claims is necessary before he can even take a position on it. Maybe you’re for it, maybe you’re not, but it’s really pretty simple.
As sure as we know that some of our children will grow up to be left-handed, some will grow up to be gay. And if they, these children of ours, are lucky enough to someday meet the person they would like to share the rest of their lives with, why are they any less worthy of enjoying every one of the pleasures a marriage brings?
It is not enough to create some kind of “civil union” and offer it up as a pale substitute to the rights the rest of us enjoy. A civil union is less than a marriage, and we all know it. And so do our children. The only possible message they can receive by this distinction is that to be gay is to be less than normal.
As a student and also a teacher of law, I am fascinated by the way the greatest injustices in our country’s history could have possibly occurred. Good and fair-minded people stood by in the Massachusetts colony in the late 1600s while suspected witches were put to death.
They stood by in Scottsboro, Alabama, in the 1930s while nine young black men were convicted, again and again, of terrible crimes the evidence simply did not support. And again, when we arrested and detained Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can look back on these events and many others and wonder what our ancestors could possibly have been thinking. When in 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a runaway slave was property and not a citizen, and when in 1900 we still believed that women did not possess the intelligence to vote.
All these injustices occurred, in large part I believe, because good and fair-minded people simply needed too much time to overcome their prejudices or their fears.
Maine should have a gay marriage law. We should do it because it is the right thing to do, but I suggest doing it will also enhance the “Maine brand” that a recent Brookings Institute study found was perhaps our state’s greatest strength. At the same time we work to strengthen our economy, we can also send a message to businesses and tourists and entrepreneurs everywhere: a message that says, loud and clear, that in Maine our minds are as open as our beautiful landscapes.
It isn’t very hard to look backward and recognize injustice. Our Legislature should do something harder. It should make marriage in Maine available to everyone.
Woody, you have not explained why calling a relationship between two people of the same sex a “marriage,” in contradiction to common English usage, is somehow necessary to make those people happy. With your oft-expressed concerns for freedom of speech, perhaps you should consider that some of us think we have a right to speak our native language.
When you go on to compare people who prefer to speak ordinary English to those who burned witches, those who detained Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, and those who compelled runaway slaves to return to their “owners,” it seems to me that you are the one who is in the grip of “prejudices” and “fears.” There is no violence involved in declining to change the English language. There isn’t some sort of natural human right to make the words of our language mean something other than what they do mean.
I wish no harm at all to people who think they were predestined to be gay at birth, though science and common sense don’t support this belief. I don’t interfere with their activities or advocate that others interfere with them, nor do I hate or fear them; I just disagree. I affirm my right to form my own conclusions, to disagree with ideas that happen to be “politically correct” at a given moment in history, when I think the evidence doesn’t support them. There is no “right” to be agreed with, any more than there is a “right” to make other people change their language.
One thing that shows the weak foundation for the “gay marriage” idea is that nobody seems able to make out a case for it without resorting to slander of those who disagree.
You want to be able to say that “in Maine our minds are as open as our beautiful landscapes.” If so, that includes your mind–and I don’t see open-mindedness in your article.
Licia Kuenning
licia@qhpress.org
http://www.qhpress.org
http://megalink.net/~klee
Admin logged in for Donna:
Hello,
Just wanted to take the time to thank you for your article about gay marriage in Maine. I am gay and live here in Franklin County. I personally have never suffered much in the way of discrimination, have a wonderful partner and we filed for domestic partnership the day it became legal to do so in Maine. In short, because neither of us have ‘suffered’ at all we have both never seen the need to push for gay marriage. This quote from your article, “It is not enough to create some kind of “civil union” and offer it up as a pale substitute to the rights the rest of us enjoy. A civil union is less than a marriage, and we all know it. And so do our children. The only possible message they can receive by this distinction is that to be gay is to be less than normal.” was enough to make me change my mind. And now I will do what I can to change the minds of others.
Thank you very much!
Donna Dashnau
Govt should not be involved in “marriage ” at all. All unions should be civil and performed by a govt official.regardles of gender, as long as the two are 18 or older, Oops there is a problem…. Since we let kids get “married” in the U S. I guess someone could cosign for them.
If after the legal part is done, someone wants to go the added step and get the union blessed in the eyes of their god, then they can do that according to the rules of their faith. If it allows blesing of gay couples so be it.
This is done in European countries
It is a two step process for those who want it.
“marriage” should not carry legal weight.. The civil contract of anyone regardless of gender abides by state contractual law and when it gets broken “divorce” also gos by the civil law.
Thank you for your report about gay marriage. I feel it is too bad to have to differentiate ‘marriage’ and ‘gay marriage’. I believe that marriage is marriage, if two people love and respect each other and wish to join their lives together legally and spiritually, they should be allowed.
As for your historical references, they are spot on. They are certainly not a slander to any ‘ordinary English’ speaking people. They are historical facts and if people are offended at their happenings, they should be. They are sad accounts of societal ignorance. But in order for society to evolve into a better society, it must be open to change and ready to correct discrimination and other wrongs. Without these changes women wouldn’t be able to vote, work, or get an education. Thinking, actions, and language all have to change with the times and evolve along with society because without these changes we would be stagnant, and let’s face it, this society is not ideal and has a lot of room to grow.
Hindsight is 20/20, and when we can look back and see that such a thing as disallowing two people to be married because of their gender is a baseless discrimination then it must be fixed. When we know better we must be required to do better.
So pleased to see this piece and it isn’t difficuly to wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Hanstein here.
I was surprised to follow the links at the end of Licia Kuenning’s comments and find she is a Quaker. (or one would reasonably assume that based on the links).
I went to Quaker school as a child and I know Quakers well – I hope no one reading those comments comes away with the impression that the clearly bigoted viewpoint of Licia is in any way representative of that tradition and religion. In fact, as a group Quakers have been quite clear about heir wholehearted support for gay marriage and gay righs in general and every Quaker I know would view the “people who think they were predesitined at birth…” comment to be the unvarnished hatred that it is.
It always fascinated me that bigots reliably fail to study history – and in this case we have a point that speaks directly to that issue when we examine Miscegenation (a word that today many consider offensive), this speaks to the most recent change in our marriage laws here in the US, marriages between people of different races.
In the US we had laws preventing “mixed race” marriages on the books until 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Loving vs Virginia and effectively struck down the reminaing laws in 16 states as unconsitutional. Go read the arugments the state of Virgina made to try and keep this couple from getting married – they speak directly about the idea of native lanaguage and “ordinary english”.
When you try to hide behind logic to defend your own bigotry it seems to me important that you would take the time to determine if in fact your “logic” has been used by others in the past – the Nazi’s used this argument, South Africa used this argument, unconstitutional US laws used this argument and here we have it again from Licia Kuenning. Sad, Sad, Sad. I just hope no one assume bigotry to be a tenent of Quakerism, it most certianly is not.
Kudos to the Bulldog for publishing this piece – very good to see it.
Ross Lasley
ross@theinterneteducator.com
http://www.TheInternetEducator.com
Thank you, Woody. Excellent article, well said. I was interested in Licia Keuning’s complaint that you were using the word marriage “in contradiction to common English usage”, so, as always, I went to Google to look up definitions. This seems helpful:
The definition of marriage depends on not only the historical period, but also on the geographical location and the cultural traditions of the individuals involved in the marriage relationship.
A general definition of marriage is that it is a social contract between two individuals that unites their lives legally, economically and emotionally.
Being married also gives legitimacy to sexual relations within the marriage. Forms of marriage include:
* monogamy
* polygamy
* polygyny
* polyandry
* same-sex
* pragmatic (arranged)
* romantic
* forced
I had to look up some of these, and am unsure about my thought on polyygany and polyandry, but thank goodness, arranged and forced marriages have ceased to be accepted in America “in our historical period.” And same sex-marriage is being more than accepted; it is being welcomed as another sign of Americans’ belief in “justice for all. ‘
admin logged in for Margery:
I would like to commend Woody Hanstein on his article on gay marriage. I have to give him credit for bringing up the subject at all. I, myself do not see where there is any problem or where it is a threat to anyone. I find that religion plays too much of a negative role in this debate, and that their raised voices scare too many people from supporting an obvious human rights issue.
I would like to see Maine join Massachusetts in being a positive role model in being all inclusive for its citizens concerning gay marriage. It’s not only good socially in my view, but economically, as well.
Margery Blonder
E.Dixfield, Me
Woody, first, thank you for your articulate and fair-handed thoughts on this matter, and also for being supportive of equality. I also agree with you that it is never NOT the time to talk about civil rights and equality — and that to have this discussion is not a “distraction” from “more important” issues. Establishing hiearchies of needs like this is how civil rights have long been placed on the back burner by the mainstream being at liberty to say “it’s not your time yet. We’ll get to you, but it’s not your time right now because x, y, and z are more important” because they are unaffected by the absent equality that othered communities struggle with daily.
As a queer person, I have complex feelings on marriage equality because I find that the notion of “marriage” strikes me as a heteronormative, archaic institutition that infringes somewhat upon the separation of church and state; in an idealized context, I’d rather all government dealings with the legalization of relationship structures be called “civil unions,” and indeed, leave the idea of marriage as a religious construction for which legal rights are a separate civil matter. I also find that the fact that members of the queer and transgender community face persecution, fear, intimidation, violence, and death daily based on their identities with no legally-pursuable path at a national level unacceptable; that is, that while crimes against members of the queer and trans community are illegal by the virtue of being crimes, yes, they are not considered discriminatory. Legislation surrounding hate-crime legislation and employment-non-discrimination (the second of which Maine has, thankfully, already covered!) feel more pressing to me, in many ways, than the question of equal marriage — but what matters is that we are here, discussing the question of marriage equality now.
And I think that because some fractions of our society have decided that marriage equality is a right that not all members of our society are want to have inclusive of their partner preferences, it becomes an essential right by the very virtue of it being withheld. We cannot have an equal and solid society if any rights are being denied to any group of free citizens, particularly on the basis of discrimination. And with the legal component of marriage comes 1138 legal rights, such as being at a partner’s bedside in the hospital and the ability to file joint taxes, that are otherwise denied to constituents by the concept of “civil unions” as they presently exist in some states or by the domestic partnership registry that Maine currently makes use of for same-sex or same-gender couples.
To Licia, finally, I struggle with your use of othering language like “those people” to describe members of the trans and queer community, and your preaching of “accepting” but “disagreeing” with the “lifestyles” of members within these communities while you are referring to these communities of folks as “them” and “those people,” like we are some strange anomaly that exists outside the bounds of “normal” society, and I wonder how this is acceptance — or even tolerance.
I don’t know Licia Kuenning personally but I must come to her defense following her attack by an individual by the name of Ross Lasley. The “Quaker” schools he attended as a child clearly not of the Christ-centered variety. Instead, they were schools that purported to be Quaker while being in every sense extremely liberal and secular humanistic in deed and thought. If you really knew your history (and you present yourself as an authority), you would clearly know that Quakerism was founded on Christian principles and beliefs. Homosexuality- or any other types of sin for that matter- were never accepted by Quakers. Show me one passage in the books of George Fox, Robert Barclay, Isaac Pennington or any other well-known Quaker, where they believed homosexuality was acceptable. Of course you won’t find it because they believed that homosexuality, just like adultery, idolatry, greed, etc. was a sin. And by the way, to this day there are more Quakers in the world who profess Christian beliefs (and are opposed to homosexuality) than professed liberal, secular humanistic “Quakers.” You cannot honestly and legitimately equate so-called “gay marriage” to a marriage between a man and a woman of different races. No matter what their races, a man and a woman are still opposite sexes and can procreate. Homosexuals, no matter what their races, are of the same sex and cannot procreate. If they want to practice homosexuality, so be it. They’ll have to deal with the consequences. But as for the government legitimizing their behavior by instituting so-called “gay marriage,” that’s an insult to real marriage and the human family as a whole.
I am taken aback by your assertion that someone who believes homosexuality is a sin is a bigot. More specifically you also claim that Quakers believe homosexuality and so-called “gay marriage” are acceptable. That’s a lie. True Quakers do not believe in such things. And even though we believe homosexuality is a sin, there’s no bigotry involved. The term “bigot” is being thrown around much like the term “racist” is used nowadays. The word “bigot” is a powerful word used in America to shut down anyone who opposes the homosexual lobby or its goals to destroy the traditional family structure. I’m tired of the far-left trying to push homosexuality and other perversions on the American people. We’re not going to stand for it any more. So that’s why I’m speaking out.
Thought it worth responding to Ed’s “comments” , such as they are.
Like any religion Quakerism certainly has many different followers and the cry of “True Quakers” is always an issue – just ask the Mormons. It does seem to me to be pretty reasonable to paint quakers as the left wing anti slavery anti violence concientious objectors that they mostly are – even if there are a few bible thumpers that purport to be “quaker”.
However – there is a pretty well established list of “Quaker” Schiools – Swathmore, William Penn, Cornell, etc are the colleges and most of the K-12 are knowns as “Friends” school, in fact the Obama children are attending Sidwell Friends in DC. I found this quote from quaker.org to really do a better job than I could of responding here:
—————————————
Traditionally, Friends, like other churches, insisted that the Bible in the Ten Commandments and elsewhere provided a summary of the moral law, a law used to condemn homosexuality. However, in the early 1970s several scholars issued books arguing that a careful exegesis of the passages that the church had relied upon to condemn homosexuality were based either upon a holiness code in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, whose other prescriptions no one took seriously, or rested upon an extrapolation from Paul (or pseudo-Paul) that had more relevance to first century temple prostitution than modern life. At the very least, scholars showed that there were several alternative interpretations of the Scripture verses on homosexuality.
For liberal Friends, the Bible was a guide for spiritual life, but it was a product of history and many of its strictures were obsolete. The women’s liberation movement had long complained about patriarchal language in the Bible and the church and claimed that traditional morality had camouflaged oppression of half of the population. Friends had already accepted the legitimacy of womenÆs protest and sought to create a more inclusive language, referring to a Mother-Father God or Sophia. In addition, most FGC Friends by the 1970s had only a superficial knowledge of the Bible and the few surviving biblical scholars like Henry Cadbury and Alexander Purdy, now old men, had not written on homosexuality. So unlike the continuing discussion of scriptural passages on homosexuality in other denominations and even among evangelical and fundamentalist Friends, the discussion on homosexuality among FGC Friends did not rely upon biblical exegesis. Only opponents of gay rights cited theology and church history.
——————————————
Overall I continue to think the term bigot is a fair and reasonable word to use when describing people that deem sexual orientation a “sin”.
Federal civil rights laws protect people based on sexual orientation.
Maine law protects people based on sexual orientation.
and yet you object to the use of the word Bigot?
See – the government has already “legitimzied” homsexuals in the same way they did for other groups in the past. Get over it.
The law is quite clear – you are a bigot, no different than someone ranting against african americans or women’s right to vote – and while I’m sure there are bible verses that seemingly support the opression of those groups as well I think that as Americans we have unviersally acccepted that folks that think women aren’t equal are bigots, not just especially “religous” people that are entitled to their “opinion”.
As “christ centered” Quakers are a small fringe group that do not in any way represent what generally comes to mind when people use the word I stand behind my comments and think they are quite fair.
Like folks who assert that “true mormons” are polygamous I wish you all the best in your quest to define the word – for those of us that aren’t a part of your struglle we’ll contune to think of Quakers as the crunchy granola type people that the vast majroity of them are, in muhc the same way that Mitt Romney is a pretty typical Mormon today, despite the fact he only has one wife. :-)
Interesting thread though – thanks for the band.
All the best,
Ross
You write so well.