PERRY V. SCHWARZENEGGER--WEEK ONE--THE "BEYOND MARRIAGE" PERSPECTIVE: Nancy Polikoff

blogs (I stripped the URLs, sorry, don't have time to put them all in):

...Anyway, I was surprised to see the issue come up immediately in this trial. Judge Walker interrupted Olson's opening statement to ask (among other things) if California could get out of the marriage business altogether and just provide domestic partnership for all couples. He pressed the point through additional questions, even though Olson said the state would never "get out of the marriage business."

Subsequently, according to Prop8trialtracker.com, (scroll down to 3:20 pm update), the judge asked one of the plaintiffs, Sandy Stier,

"If the state were to get out of the business of using the term marriage, but created another name for it for all people, domestic union or whatever, would not that put you on the same plane as all others?

Sandy: I believe so. Yes. If we had the same access, I’d feel equal.

Judge: Even though the term marriage is not used?

Sandy: Yes, because if it’s not a legal status sanctioned by the state or government, I'd not have to worry about access to it because no one else would either."

Note that this is not the common answer from proponents of marriage equality. Yet it is precisely the glorification of marriage that I find so disturbing about same-sex marriage advocacy. On the same day of testimony, Sandy's partner, Kris Perry, (scroll to 2:46 pm)testified that:

"I don’t have access to the word to describe our relationship. Marriage appears to be really important to people. I’d like to use the word, too. You chose that person over everyone else. You feel that it should stick. You want the public support and inclusion that comes with marriage. If we got married, it would be an enormous relief to our straight friends who feel sorry for us. I can’t stand it. They have a word. They belong to this institution. Sandy and I went to a school football game. I realized they were all married and we’re not."

And in what I find the most disturbing portrayal of marriage, plaintiff Jeff Zarrillo said (scroll to 11;34 am):

"We have not had children because Paul and I believe that it’s an important step for us to be married before we have children. It would make it easier for us and our children to explain our relationship. It would afford different protections for our child. If we enter into that institution, we would want all of the protections so nothing could eradicate that nuclear family."

Of course this is completely in keeping with the argument that children do best with married parents, but that's an argument with its origin in opposition to same-sex marriage (Just look at the Hawaii litigation, for example.) Back when marriage equality was not a prominent item on the gay rights agenda, LGBT rights advocates opposed that reasoning, arguing that children do just as well with a gay or lesbian parent or with a same-sex couple. Now in furtherance of marriage equality, advocates assert that children with same-sex parents will be better off if those parents are married. Let me tear my hair out now. The tangible benefits of having two parents are not supposed to turn on whether those parents are married. I've written about this at length.

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Labels: beyond marriage, gay marriage, Marriage, Nancy Polikoff

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