The Slippery Slope from Same-Sex Marriage to Bigamy

While I spent last summer and fall reveling in my own marriage (see part one and part two of my on-going series, "A Midwestern Marriage"), I pretty much had my head in the sand with regard to most political developments on the marriage equality front (truth be told, I’ve pretty much had my head in the sand about politics in general).  I have, of course, heard that Ted Olson, the conservative lawyer of Bush v. Gore fame, is challenging California’s Prop 8 in federal court, arguing it is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.  I will admit that my somewhat cynical (but not, I think, totally unwarranted) first impression was that this is some sort of conservative plot, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing and all that, because this Supreme Court?  And I still think, yeah, good luck with that.

But I just read The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage by Ted Olsen in Newsweek , and I’m willing to concede that he at least seems sincere (though such deep cynicism is not beneath this Republican party, so if a we'll-show-those-queers, smoking gun GOP memo emerges some day, after the Court firmly establishes that gay and lesbian folks do not, in fact, enjoy equal protection under the law, I just want to go on record now as saying I won’t be surprised).

(edited to add:  read the rest of this essay after the jump by clicking "read more" below)

A Little Christmas Cheer, New York Style

Michael's status update on Facebook is worth sharing, I think.

Michael Caine is humming to himself: In the meadow we can build a snowman. Then pretend that he is Parson Brown. He'll say "Are you married?" We'll say, "No, man! 'Cause the bigots in the Senate shot us down."

That's my pastor. If you're on Facebook, go friend him, 'cause he's trying to get to 1000 friends, and he only has 111 to go.

What's that you say? No, it is NOT shallow! It's just very media-savvy, that's all!

But if you friend Michael, you should friend me first, 'mkay? Marta Rose.

edited to add additional lyrics, suggested by one of Michael's Fb friends:

Later on we'll conspire

as we plot by the fire

and think of new ways to be nice to gays

surviving in a bigot's wonderland.

Diary of a Mad Housewife: Micah and the New Normal (or: William and His Doll are So Yesterday!)

Wednesday was a bit of a comedy of errors.

I decided earlier in the week to finally paint the living room, after living for many months with a big red test swatch on one wall. I had bought a gallon of this test-swatch color, a slightly orangy-red that is very pretty, but not exactly what I want, as it turns out. It makes me feel like I'm in a fun, funky Indian restaurant -- exactly the right color for eating Indian food, but not exactly the right color for doing all the other things I do in my living room. Having already purchased a gallon of it, and knowing that red takes at least three, sometimes four coats to cover, I decided to use the wrong red as a base coat, and then get a gallon of the right red later to finish the job.

So I made Trixie fix herself a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner (meal planning and preparation in the midst of home renovation is not my forte), and then after dropping her off at swim practice, Micah and I headed up Rising Sun Boulevard to my friendly, not-quite-in-my-neighborhood paint store to get that gallon of the right red. We also planned to go to the Wawa for hot dogs. Julie was still at school grading papers, which is pretty much what she does these days, like a machine.

About two blocks from the paint store, it occurred to me for the very first time that it might not be open, and that I really should have checked before driving all the way up there. It was after six, and getting dark, but when we pulled into the lot, the lights were all on, and the door was open! But no, they were about to close. The very nice lady at the counter said I could buy a brush or something small, but I knew there was no chance she was going to mix up two gallons of paint for me (Michael needs another gallon of the special-order lime green I used to paint his living room in the parsonage this past summer.)

I was feeling pretty impressed with myself that I didn't just collapse into a puddle on the floor, and instead decided to make the best of a stupid situation. I picked up a few color chips that I needed, and Micah and I headed across the parking lot to Wawa, where we got hot dogs and chips, and I got a diet Pepsi and he got a strawberry milk.

Now before I can finish this story, there's something you need know about my family that is utterly absurd: we own three cars. Not only that, but two of them are vans. Yes, for all our eco-crunchiness, we are really just a mean, carbon-spitting machine of a family. And we are NOT proud of it. It is utterly stupid. But let me explain.

When Micah was a toddler, I took care of a lot of kids, one baby about twenty hours a week, and several more neighborhood kids before and after school. My natural tendency to righteousness has, in general over the years, melted more and more into humility, and one of the most humbling moments in my life was when we purchased a mini-van. I was humble, but boy was I happy. I loved my mini-van! I loved, and still do love, being the mom who could haul lots of kids around safely, who could pick up other folks' kids from school in a pinch, who could make last-minute plans because there was room, who could take a van-load of kids to the zoo or the aquarium on days when there was an early dismissal. I still love nothing more than a van full of kids, a bag of snacks and a knitting project or a book so I can ignore the kids whenever we arrive at our destination. My silvery-blue Honda Odyssey has a big spooge of yellow and green gunk on the carpet in the back that I think was once silly putty; it's always really really messy, even though I clean and vacuum it pretty regularly; it's scratched and nicked and dented all over the place, especially the back bumper because I'm a terrible parallel parker. That bumper has three bumper stickers on it, all faded and nicked up: "Lactavist," "God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions," and "I Believe in the Separation of Church and Hate." Yes, I love my van. It has made me humble but oh-so-happy.

We tried being a one-car family for awhile, but we just failed. It's really stupid too, because Julie works just four miles from our house. But there's no reliably safe way to get there by bike, it's just a little too far to commit to walking every day, and she would spend an hour on three busses to get there by public transportation. There's no one in our neighborhood to car-pool with, and it was a lot of extra driving and time and coordination for me to drop her off and pick her up, especially since she generally tries to get to work pretty early. So several years ago we bought the "new" car, as Micah still calls it, a 1989 boxy silver Toyota Camry. Our friends thought we were nuts, and being taken for a ride by a smarmy used car salesman, but as it turns out, it really was the dreamed-of little-old-lady car -- you know, the one that the little-old-lady drives to church and the grocery store once a week and that's it? It had something like 50,000 miles on it, and the little-old-lady was the mom of the car dealer, so it had been meticulously maintained, with the whole maintenance history faithfully recorded and tucked in the glove box. We got it for something like $3500, and it was the best car buy ever. We've put a little bit of money into it, but it is an utterly reliable around-town vehicle, and we love it.

And then about a year ago, Julie inherited a 1989 VW Westfalia camper van from her aunt and uncle. Auntie and Uncle Bill took this van on one trip through Canada and then parked it in their garage, where it was used only by squirrels for fifteen years. We've had our eyes on it forever. It has a pop top and the back seats fold down into another bed. There's a stove and a fridge and little closets and cupboards and it's all very Euro-sleek but in a late-80's sort of way. When Uncle Bill died and Auntie went into a retirement home, their three vehicles got divvied up among their two nieces and their nephew, since they were childless. Without really thinking it all through, we jumped at the VW. Julie,especially, became completely enamored of it. She would come out of stores to find people peering into the windows. Men would stop her in parking lots to ask questions about it and regale her with stories of their own beloved VW's. And there was even a tow-truck driver who took a call for a flat tire after he was technically off duty just because he loves VW's so much.

The plan was to sell the Honda as soon as we got the VW in good working order, which shouldn't have taken very long, because it was actually in pretty good shape. But after years of sitting in the garage, a few things needed tending to. I also demanded that a second bench seat be installed because without it the van only had four seat belts, which made me no longer the mom who can haul lots of kids around. As it turns out, the tending of a 1989 VW camper van can take awhile (and, ahem, a bit more money that we intended), but it was all good, and by this past summer, we did all of our considerable summer travels in the camper van.

But we just keep not getting around to selling the Honda. Which is just profoundly stupid. What is even more stupid is that I keep driving it, because the VW just feels so big and clunky, and it's not my natural inclination to get in it if the Honda is right there too. But the other day when I drove the kids (including several neighbor kids) to school because it was raining, the battery on the Honda was dead. So I took the camper van, like I should have any way, and just left the Honda there for a few days. Until the Toyota started acting a little weird, and needed to go into the shop. Julie took the VW to school, and I called our good friends at AAA, who have never made a single penny on our family, despite the fact that we have the totally top-shelf premier membership. The battery was jumped and I let it run for a long time and much later in the day when I got into the Honda to take Trixie to swimming and then headed up to the paint store, it started like a charm.

But when we got out of the Wawa with our hot dogs and chips? Not so much. This time I really did almost collapse in a puddle on the floor. But Julie talked me down, and then I called AAA again, and this time they just changed the damn battery while Micah and I played "Rock, Paper Scissors" and "One Two Three Four, I Declare a Thumb War" in the parking lot while we watched. And finally, considerably past Micah's bedtime, we headed home with our hot dogs and our new battery, which we had driven all the way up the boulevard to get. But no paint.

On our drive home, apropos of nothing, Micah asked, "Mom, do you like boys or girls better?"

"Hmmm," I thought. "I don't think I could really say, categorically, that I like girls or boys better. There are some things I like girls better for, and some things I like boys better for. For example, I like girls better for marrying, so that's why I'm married to Mama Julie. But for having sons, I like boys better, like you. And for being friends, I really like both boys and girls. So I love being friends with Jennie and Pat and Kate and Jen and Suzanne and Cassie, for example, but I also love being friends with Woody and Joey and Tim and Dan and Pete and Michael and Mark. So I guess I couldn't really say if I like boys or girls better. I guess it just depends."

Micah thought about this for a minute. And then I asked, "How 'bout you? Do you like boys or girls better?"

"Boys!" he declared, without hesitation.

"Oh," I said, "That's interesting. Because Ada and Meg are two of your very best friends."

"Yeah, I like them, but I still like boys better. Nial and Jasper and Ian are my best friends."

"Yeah, they're pretty good friends, aren't they? I'm glad you have such nice friends." And then, just out of curiosity, I asked, "How about for marrying? Do you think you would rather marry a girl or a boy?"

And again, without any hesitation, Micah declared: "A boy!"

And here's the thing: I believe, more and more, that human sexuality is a very fluid thing, and that it's usually not useful to put labels on people until they are ready to put them on themselves, and even then they can change, and that's not only good, it's a beautiful thing. But right now, if you really pushed me, I would probably put money on the chances that Micah will, in fact, marry a girl. But I just couldn't be happier that at six and a half, it still seems perfectly normal and even likely to Micah that he might marry a boy someday. We are so blessed and I am so grateful to live in communities -- neighborhood, church, school -- where boys marrying boys and girls marrying girls is just the new "normal."

The Cost and Joy of Discipleship: Renewing My Lesbian Card

On my “ketchup” list in my last post was the fact that I have been thinking more about being a lesbian in the past ten weeks than I have in the past ten years. That might be a bit of an exaggeration (I’m a little prone to hyperbole), but not too much. Julie used to joke that they were going to take away our lesbian cards soon, if we didn’t get some pride … but then we didn’t, and then we were pretty sure the cards had, in fact, expired. Aside from in fact being lesbians, our lives aren’t very, well, lesbian. We don’t go to gay pride events, we’re not part of any gay and lesbian organizations, we don’t have a rainbow flag outside our house. We have plenty of gay friends, but they’re mostly not our friends because they’re gay, but because they go to our church, or they live on our block, or our kids are playmates.

So my newfound enthusiasm – giddiness even – for thinking and talking about being gay is especially startling to me, like someone renewed my card and forgot to tell me! And it’s not as though I haven’t given any thought to being a lesbian in the last decade, but honestly, it’s just occurring to me that for the most part, what brings gayness to the center of my attention has almost always been the ugly stuff: DOMA and the federal marriage amendment and the whole toxic political climate of the Bush years. But suddenly, we’re married! And we have a gay pastor! And hey, it feels sort of fun to be gay again!

I know that I owe you all an essay or two to conclude my marriage series, but it’s still percolating. I really thought getting married in Iowa was sort of a formality, something kind of cool we never thought we could do. I never imagined that it would be so profoundly generative, in such lovely and unexpected ways. I look forward to sharing all that with you soon (ish; no promises). But I’m finding that I sort of need to write and share my way around it for awhile. The meaning in it, which is gorgeous and unexpected and feels over and over like grace – it’s just too big right now to get my arms all the way around.

So in the meantime, I thought I would share a couple of scenes from a lesbian life, as they are happening to me, or coming back to me these days.

I.

Last Sunday at the adult Sunday school series called Sharing our Faith Stories, our pastor Michael led us in an exercise intended to help us feel more comfortable sharing with one another. It was sort of like “speed dating,” except it was “speed faith sharing.” The chairs in the social hall were set in two concentric circles, facing each other, so folks sitting in each circle were paired with someone sitting in the other circle, knee to knee. Michael would ask us a question, and we each had a minute to share, and then one circle would move one space to the right, so you had a new partner for each question. One of the questions was to tell about an embarrassing moment, and this is the story I told, as it turns out, to my dear friend Suzanne:

When we left Indiana to move to Philadelphia, it was largely because we couldn’t be out there and still be teachers, and Julie, at least, was really sure that she was called to teach (and she was right). As I have written before, it was painful to be closeted in our small, rural classrooms, and the city felt so fresh, so wide-open, so safe, ironically enough. And we were definitely loving being out again, like the BDOC’s (big dykes on campus) that we had been in college. That was definitely way before our lesbian cards expired, back in the day when we loved nothing more than a march on Washington, and if it was a dyke march, all the better.

So there we were, marching with tens of thousands of lesbians right past the White House, and there was a whole contingent who had stripped to the waist. And if you know me, you know that in general I like to have as little clothing on as possible, so OF COURSE I took my shirt off. I mean, right? What else would I do? And we’re marching right past the White House, and we’re chanting something like “Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia has got to go,” or singing “A you’re an Amazon, B coming Brave and strong, Clearly and Confidently you C! D you’re so dykey, oh how you Excite me, how Fortunate for the Female Faculty!” Or some such, you get the picture.

And then, quietly at first, and then a little louder, and more insistent, I hear a voice from behind: “Miss Rose? Miss Rose? Is that YOU?”

And sure enough, I turned around to see a somewhat flushed (and fully clothed, but quite clearly marching in the dyke march) former student. And by former, I mean like she was my student LAST YEAR!

Again, those of you who know me in person know that I’m no prude, and I would probably be quite comfortable being naked in front of most of you – certainly if we were marching together in a dyke march past the White House – but this was too much. Even for me. I smiled, and said, “Well hello! Just let me put my shirt on and then I can talk to you!” But I’m pretty sure I was blushing.

II.

It’s lovely to feel so celebrated and safe these days as a lesbian woman, wife and mother. It’s so lovely that I almost forgot how recently it felt so very different. I think it’s important to remember. This is a link to something I shared with my congregation one Sunday in worship just three short years ago, when Pennsylvania was considering an amendment excluding gays and lesbians from marriage.

III.

A couple of weeks ago in church, we sang a new response at some point in the liturgy, that went like this:

Open my eyes, that I may see

glimpses of truth, Thou hast for me.

Open my eyes ...

Well, actually, I can’t remember exactly how the song we sang in church went, but most of you who grew up in church probably recognized this, right? That never happens to me, because I didn’t grow up in church. All those hymns that you’re pissed off about because some earnest PC music committee changed the lyrics? Doesn’t bother me in the least, because I never knew the old lyrics to begin with. So I was pretty startled that I recognized this song, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until about the third verse, and then I remembered: Cris Williamson, Song of the Soul, from The Changer and the Changed (go listen!) – the song that opens with that same refrain:

Open my eyes, that I may see

glimpses of truth Thou hast for me

Open my eyes illumine me,

Spirit Divine ….

And if you were an earnest lesbian (or even just an earnest feminist) in the 1980’s, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. Remember how we used to sit up in the Womyn’s Center on the fourth floor of Carpenter Hall, that gorgeous space where men were not allowed, and where the sun streamed through that big semi-circular window? There were great big couches and pillows on the floor and that lavender mural called “Weaving Webs of Women’s Lives,” remember? (And of course, if you didn’t go to Earlham College in the 1980’s, but you were an earnest feminist somewhere else in those years, you can probably at least imagine what I’m talking about). There was a record player in the corner and a slender stack of “women’s music” albums – or “wimmin’s music,” or “womyn’s music” – oh my, but we were earnest then! And I loved it all – Cris Williamson and Meg Christian [edited to get her name right] and their triumphant concert at Carnegie Hall, singing about loving women; and Holly Near, who was maybe even a lesbian for a minute or two, wasn’t she? But at the very least she was bringing all us gentle, angry people together in harmony. And Ferrin, remember her? Oh good Lord, she was not only earnest, but earnest and bleak. And Deirdre McCalla [edited to fix her name] and Theresa Trull and Toshi Reagan … they were all like the sound track of my life back then. And I loved it all.

So when we sang that song in church the other day, a song that I not only knew from before I became a regular church-goer, but knew from those sun-filled days in the lavender womb of the Womyn’s Center, it all came flooding back – how much I loved being a lesbian, how full of hope and pride and joy we were, such young women loving each other, and how much those women’s music singers – Cris and Meg and Holly and Deirdre and Theresa and Toshi and all the rest – how easy it is to remember them with sentimentality, or to poke fun (as I often do) at their earnestness, and to forget that they really were pioneers. That it was fucking brave back then to get up on a stage and sing about loving another woman. I’m glad I got to be reminded of that in the midst of my loving, open and affirming congregation, being led by an openly gay pastor – those women were among the many folks who paved the way for there to be such a church, and such a pastor, and such a giddy lesbian as me -- and I am ever grateful to all of them.

The Cost and Joy of Discipleship: Some Thoughts on Gay Marriage from 2006

I started writing my next post (above) thinking that I haven't been thinking much about being a lesbian for a decade or more ... and then I remembered this. I guess I haven't had so much FUN thinking about being a lesbian in a decade as I'm having now, but certainly the raging homophobia of the Bush years had me thinking a lot about my lesbianism just a couple of years ago. It's refreshing to feel the climate change so much and so quickly; I certainly never thought, when I shared this piece during worship at Old First in the spring of 2006, that I would be married (though not recognized in Pennsylvania) in three short years. This was written in a much less hopeful time, when the Pennsylvania legislature was considering an amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution to exclude same sex marriage, an amendment I am pleased to report was never passed. Still, it's good to remember what that time felt like.

***

I was in the car recently listening to Radio Times and heard Kenji Yoshino, a gay professor at Yale Law School, discussing his new book about gay civil rights. Yoshino was telling the story of an encounter with his father who lovingly embraced his son with the words “You are my son,” during a difficult time in Yoshino’s life when he was beginning to question his sexuality. Knowing that his father loved him in that sort of unconditional way allowed him to come to terms with the fact that he was a gay man. Commenting on that encounter, Yoshino said that “love is a sort of narrative permission that allows certain stories to be told within its bounds which could not otherwise be told.” I was so struck by this thought that I kept repeating it over and over until I got home and wrote it down. “Love is a sort of narrative permission that allows certain stories to be told within its bounds which could not otherwise be told.” I think that the community we have created here at Old First is one in which the love at the heart of our Christian faith allows us to tell all sorts of stories we might not otherwise be able to tell.

I think that, like love, the law also is also a sort of narrative permission that allows certain stories to be told. Often those stories are very affirming, but unfortunately, they aren’t always. One of the stories for which the law creates a narrative framework is the story of marriage and family: the law tells us that certain sorts of marriages and families are “real” and “legitimate” and worthy of celebration, and others are ominously dangerous imposters. Of course, we at Old First know better, because God’s love is what guides our story-telling, but none of us at Old First is immune from the effects of this other story that is constantly being told by and through the law. I would like to share with you how that other story has affected me and my family.

As you all know by now, the Pennsylvania legislature is considering an amendment to the Pennsylvania that would only recognize marriage between a man and a woman, and that would prohibit the Commonwealth from conferring any legal status on unmarried couples. This proposed amendment has to be understood in a much wider context of similar legislation and amendments, beginning with DOMA, the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act, followed by mini-DOMA’s in many states, and then a proposed “Federal Marriage Amendment” to the federal constitution, and most recently a rash of state constitutional amendments like the one currently under consideration in Pennsylvania. To date, voters in 19 states have enacted such constitutional amendments, while 13 other states in addition to Pennsylvania are currently somewhere in the process of enacting one. Many of these amendments also contain vague language denying marriage-like benefits to unmarried couples, which may be interpreted as including domestic partnership health benefits. The state of Virginia recently enacted legislation which prohibits any contract, public or private, which would confer any of the benefits of marriage on a same-sex couple.

And as if these assaults on same-sex couples aren’t enough, now our opponents are going after our families. Currently one state, Florida, does not allow openly gay and lesbian people to adopt children, neither individually nor as a couple. Now 16 other states are considering legislation which would prohibit adoption by lesbians and gay men.

Obviously, there are concrete ways that all of this legal activity affects me and my family. If the Pennsylvania constitution is amended as proposed, Julie and I essentially lose all hope of ever legally marrying in Pennsylvania and enjoying the legal benefits of marriage. We also quite possibly could lose the domestic partnership benefits we receive through the publicly funded Philadelphia School District – the benefits that allow me to be home with our children and to do the unpaid work I have come to love.

That alone is certainly reason enough to go downstairs after worship and write a letter opposing the HB2381. But I want to try to share with you on an even deeper level what all of this means to us. I want you to imagine that every day when you open the paper, or log onto MSNBC, or turn on the radio, a drama is being played out in which you are the enemy, the villain. You, your most intimate relationships, the family you cherish, you all are dangerous. Unfit to raise children. The flashpoint rallying people of faith across the country in a way no other cause has managed to for decades. You, and your family, are a threat to the institution of marriage and to the very fabric of society. You hear this day after day after day, as the drama gets played out in an ever escalating series of legal enactments, each one more severe and punative than the last, until you have to ask yourself, when is it going to stop?

As for me, I go through a pretty constantly cycling series of emotions. Much of the time I get caught up in the minutia of my life, which is pretty wonderful, and I feel safe in the little bubble of progressive folks I have chosen to surround myself with. But there are other times when I lie awake at night and wonder when they will start trying to take our kids away from us, and whether Canada or Sweden or Holland will take us in. Now, I am the first to admit that in the light of day, these fears seem pretty extreme, and probably unfounded, and usually I just shake them off and tell myself I’m letting my overactive imagination get the best of me. But there are other moments when I remember that many of the Jews of Europe continued to tell themselves that it wasn’t really that bad, even as they were being sent away to their deaths in the camps. So, how do you know when that line gets crossed? How do you know when the fears you have for yourself and your family are no longer just overblown stories you are spinning for yourself in the dead of night, but something to be taken seriously? I don’t know, and not knowing makes me anxious.

I especially hate that I can’t protect my children from that anxiety. Recently, Trixie overheard a conversation I had after church about the many states considering banning gay men and lesbians from adopting, and in the car on the way home she asked me about it. We talked, as we have many times before, about how some people think it’s wrong for two women or two men to love each other and to be married and to raise a family. I explained that, for reasons I really don’t understand, some of these people feel so strongly that they want to prevent gay and lesbian people from adopting children. Trixie and I agreed that this view is absurd, and that especially silly is the notion that God agrees with this view, since after all, God is love, and that’s what our family is all about too. This is a conversation we have had many times before about marriage, but never about adoption. I waited while Trixie mulled it all over, and then came the obvious, inevitable question from a bright and thoughtful girl: “Mom, if they do that in Pennsylvania, do you think they will also undo adoptions that have already happened?”

“You mean like my adoption of you, or our adoptoin of Micah?” I asked.

“Yeah. They can’t say we’re not your kids, can they?”

And there you have it. That’s the story the law is currently telling my children: their family may not be secure because they have two moms who love each other. Of course, I assured Trixie that we will always keep our family safe, and that she needn’t worry. But the competing drama being played out in the law right now tells her and us a very different story.

Despite all the gloom and doom I’ve been sharing with you for the past several minutes, I’d like to end on a note of hope. Because I actually do feel startlingly hopeful these days. There is, of course, a much larger story than any of those I’ve been talking about, and that is the story of God’s love for us. Just recently, when I was feeling quite some despair about all of this, it came to me: I believe in God, and I believe that our God is a God of love. Those of you whose faith is deep and firm will find this a simple enough truth, one that I’m sure has sustained you through many difficult times. But those of you who know me well know that my own faith has mostly been plagued by doubt, so you may understand what a startling and powerful revelation that was when it gripped me recently. Yes, I believe in God, and our God is a God of love. God’s love is with me, God’s love is in my marriage, God’s love is in my family. And as Jeff reminded us last week, God’s love is with our opponents too. And God’s love will prevail. It will. And that is profoundly hopeful.

I’m not a pollyanna, though. I know that while my faith and God’s love are powerful and full of hope, they are unfortunately no talisman against bad things happening. This is a mystery I am still struggling to understand, but which I nevertheless know to be true. So, I hope you will take a stand against this gathering madness and lend your voice to the story love is telling. You can begin during the coffee hour today by writing a letter to your representative, asking him or her to oppose HB2381. If enough of us take a stand, and let our voices be heard, perhaps the law might begin to tell a different sort of story as well, the love story we here at Old First already know.

I thank you all for doing your part to make that happen.

Dispatches from a Recovering Bleeding Heart*: The Case Against Gay Marriage

Via Ta-Nehisi Coates, you've just gotta read this argument against gay marriage at The Weekly Standard.  It's far better than the absurd and offensive argument recently made -- apparently with a straight face (no pun intended) at the blog Secular Right -- that gay folk shouldn't be allowed to marry because it will further deteriorate the breakdown of the Black family (because all of those deadbeat Black dads are gonna really run away from marriage if they think it's, you know, queer).  But I have to grant that Sam Shulman's argument that "The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage [is that] It Isn't Going to Work" has, at the very least, some intellectual honesty.  You really should go read the piece for yourself, but in a nutshell, here is his argument:  Gay marriage is not so much offensive or immoral as it is irrelevant because it cannot, by definition, accomplish the four main purposes of marriage, all of which have to do with creating and enforcing a system of kinship.  Those four purposes are:

1.  Controlling women's sexuality and reproductive lives;

2.  Enforcing incest taboos;

3.  Keeping extra-marital sex illicit;

4.  Creating male bonds (such as hunting and business) between fathers and their sons-in-law, and female bonds (such as conspiring to control the men-folk) between mothers and their daughters-in-law.

Now, while I am glad to grant Mr. Shulman props for intellectual honesty, I would probably give him a D+ at best for his analytical skill.  If I were grading his paper, I might note, for example,  that #3 and #4 are really just subsets of #1, and that #2 is a total non-sequitur.  But for intellectual honesty, I give Mr. Shulman a B+, because what he's really saying (and I would give him an A+ if he'd just come out and say it already) is that The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage [is that] It Will Undermine Patriarchy.  And you know what? He's right about that. And if you think patriarchy is a Really Neat Thing, and you're a smart (thrice married) boy like Mr. Shulman, gay marriage is definitely something to be worried about.

In other gay marriage news, lots of good folks are keenly disappointed in the California Supreme Court today, but I am choosing to look on the bright side.  I have not read the whole opinion (it's really long), but it strikes me that 1) the argument the plaintiffs were making was creative, but a bit of a stretch and that 2) the Court's opinion is reasoned and reasonable, even if reasonable minds can disagree.  The issue in the case (upon which, in the fine tradition of law students everywhere, I feel perfectly qualified to opine, despite the fact that I have not read the entire case) is whether Proposition 8 -- which restricts the equal protection provided under the California Constitution to same-sex couples by eliminating their previously-existing right to marry -- whether that Proposition constitutes a revision or an amendment to the California Constitution.  In a nutshell, a revision constitutes a "kind of wholesale or fundamental alteration of the constitutional structure," and can be undertaken only through a constitutional convention, whereas an amendment is a more discrete change to the Constitution, and may be undertaken through a ballot measure, such as Prop 8.  There is apparently a lot of law in California distinguishing the two, and it seems the Court interpreted that law somewhat conservatively, rather than expansively and creatively as the plaintiffs had hoped.  This is certainly disappointing if you like expansive and creative constitutional interpretations in the cause of justice (and I have been known to like them; for example, Roe vs. Wade is such an expansive and creative interpretation that I have on occasion vigorously defended against the argument that it may be good policy but it's bad law).  But it is not, as some are quite understandably in their disappointment suggesting, a grave miscarriage of justice. And don't forget this good news:  the Court upheld the same-sex marriages that have already been granted in California.

Indeed, at the end of the day, I continue to believe, as I have since I spent a lot time thinking about such things in law school, that political solutions are generally better than legal ones. Which is not to say that legal strategies are always misguided, because they are not; indeed, a legal strategy must often precede a political one, because it primes the pump.  In the case of gay marriage, Massachusetts and Connecticut served that purpose, but Vermont and Maine and New Hampshire are the true victories (you know, those activist legislators legislating from the legislature, as one dear friend put it -- kinda hard to argue they are thwarting the will of the people).  And we could have had the same victory in California, but for, by most accounts, a totally inept and botched campaign against Prop 8.  A well-run campaign some years down the road is very likely going to bring us the victory we all wished for in November, and again today, and it will be all the sweeter for being a political victory, the voice of the people, the will of the majority.   I would say that it's time to take a long view, but then I remember that only a few years ago, the long view put marriage equality sometime in my grandchildren's lifetime, maybe with luck in my children's, but most certainly not in mine.  It's good to be impatient with injustice, but it's not good to let that impatience steal our hope.  

This summer, Julie and I and our two children are going to Iowa (Iowa!) where we will be married.   Less than a generation ago -- indeed, since I have been an out lesbian -- that was inconceivable to me and most other queer folk.  The California decision notwithstanding, I remain full of hope.

*I realize in retrospect that my open letter to Andrew Sullivan was the first in my newest series, Dispatches from a Recovering Bleeding Heart.  I meant to write a witty piece here at the end explaining what I mean by that, but I am tired, and so you will have to wait.  Bet you're all holding your breath in anticipation, huh?