CON: THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
Gays have married, sky hasn't fallen
Richmond Times-Dispatch Nov 4, 2006

By Darren R. Spedale and William N. Eskridge Jr.

Last Wednesday, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and benefits that the state confers upon married couples. While some other courts have also favored gay marriage, it faces an uphill battle among the voters. This November, for example, eight states -- Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin -- have initiatives on their ballot that would amend their state constitutions to prevent recognition of same-sex marriage (and in some states, civil unions as well). To date, not a single such initiative has failed; 19 states now have constitutional amendments prohibiting recognition of gay and lesbian marriages within their borders.

The proponents of these initiatives have been successful, in significant part, because they have convinced voters that the legalization of same-sex marriage would destroy, or at least significantly harm, the institution: Heterosexuals would lose faith in marriage, family structures would be weakened, and more children would be raised out of wedlock as a result. But would these things actually happen?

* * *

These are no longer hypothetical questions, because same-sex marriage is no longer just a theoretical possibility. Denmark was the first country to extend the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples in 1989; and although the law used the name "registered partnership," straight as well as lesbian and gay Danes have generally equated these partnerships with marriage. Norway followed the Danish example in 1993, Sweden in 1995. While the actual title of "marriage" has been granted to gay couples elsewhere in the world only within the last five years, the Nordic countries have provided us with a rich source of information, and a 17-year history, as to what actually happens in society when gay and lesbian citizens marry.

Social conservatives suggest that legal recognition of same-sex couples has harmed society. Sen. Bill Frist has stated that "years of de facto same-sex marriage in Scandinavia has further weakened marriage"; similar claims have been made by Sens. John Cornyn, Rick Santorum, James Inhofe and Sam Brownback.

However, there is no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry weakens the institution. If anything, the numbers indicate the opposite. A decade after Denmark, Norway and Sweden passed their respective partnership laws, heterosexual marriage rates had risen 10.7% in Denmark; 12.7% in Norway; and a whopping 28.8% in Sweden. In Denmark over the last few years, marriage rates are the highest they've been since the early 1970s. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples, on the other hand, have fallen. A decade after each country passed its partnership law, divorce rates had dropped 13.9% in Denmark; 6% in Norway; and 13.7% in Sweden. On average, divorce rates among heterosexuals remain lower now than in the years before same-sex partnerships were legalized.

In addition, out-of-wedlock birthrates in each of these countries contradict the suggestion by social conservatives that gay marriage will lead to great increases in out-of-wedlock births and therefore less family stability for children. In Denmark, the percentage of out-of-wedlock births was 46% in 1989; now it is 45%. In Norway, out-of-wedlock births jumped from 14% in 1980 to 45% right before partnerships were adopted in 1993; now they stand at 51%, a much lower rate of increase than in the decade before same-sex unions. The Swedish trend mirrors that of Norway, with much lower rates of increase post-partnership than pre-partnership.

Is there a correlation, then, between same-sex marriage and a strengthening of the institution of marriage? It would be difficult, and suspect, to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between these trends in heterosexual marriage and marriage rights for gays and lesbians. But the facts demonstrate that there is no proof that same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage, or children. An optimistic reading of the facts might even suggest that the energy and enthusiasm that same-sex couples bring to the institution of marriage may cause unmarried heterosexual couples to take a fresh look at marriage as an option.

Our research has also uncovered additional social benefits. In dozens of interviews with partnered couples and through other sources, we found that marriage rights had an important beneficial effect not only on the couples themselves, but on their local and national communities as well. Couples reported that their relationships were stronger and more durable, that relationships with family members had deepened, that co-workers had become more tolerant and supportive, and their children felt greater validation by having married parents. Many couples reported a greater emphasis on monogamy, which may be reflected by the fact that national rates of HIV and STD infections declined in each of the Scandinavian countries in the years after they passed their partnership laws.

Finally, what about the "slippery slope" argument -- that same-sex marriage would start a dangerous movement toward legal recognition of socially unacceptable relationships? This hasn't happened in Scandinavia; 17 years later, there are still no calls for recognizing polygamy, incestual marriage or marriage to animals. Danes you ask about the slippery slope think you are joking. They realize that same-sex marriages serve essentially the same goal as opposite-sex marriages: lifetime commitment to your better half, the person who completes you.

In short, the sky hasn't fallen. Rather than scapegoating gay couples as the attackers from which marriage needs "defending," pundits and politicians alike should look to no-fault divorce, prenuptial agreements and legal recognition of heterosexual cohabitation as the real culprits of weakened marriage. As the evidence indicates, societies where gay couples have the rights of marriage seem to be doing just fine.

"A cold and blustery afternoon in a south Berlin suburb and Stefan Hamberger is slumped in his doorway, gawping at his visitor.

"I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand," he croaks, slack-jawed with shock. "Please could you repeat that."

"Of course. My name is Bernd Dressler and I am the owner of The Separation Agency. I am here on behalf of your girlfriend and my client, Anne-Marie. She has hired me to terminate your relationship," repeats the neat, clipped voice.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"Hardly," says Dressler, smoothing his already smooth hair, brandishing an official-looking document and going in for the kill.

"Anne-Marie has given three reasons — your poor communication skills, lack of commitment and your flirting with other women.

"She does not want to hear from you again. She does not want to be friends. Do you understand what I’m saying? Your relationship is over. Finished. . ."

"A sperm bank can destroy a dead man's semen samples that his parents had hoped to use for a grandchild, a Manhattan judge has ruled.

Mary and Antonio Speranza had planned to use their long-dead son's semen "in the artificial insemination of a surrogate mother," but their son's contract with Reprolab and state law says they can't, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon wrote in a decision made public yesterday."

?:"In his well-received 1997 book on the AIDS crisis, Sexual Ecology, journalist Gabriel Rotello said:

The anti-marriage sentiment in the gay and lesbian political world has abated in recent years, and the legalization of same-sex marriage is now an accepted focus of gay liberation. Yet it is rarely posed as a major issue of AIDS prevention. Prevention activists generally don't include marriage as a goal because they generally don’t include monogamy as a goal....such advocates are generally careful not to make the case for marriage, but simply for the right to marriage....This is undoubtedly good practical politics, since many if not most of the major gay and lesbian organizations who have signed on to the fight for same-sex marriage would instantly sign off at any suggestion that they were actually encouraging gay men and lesbians to marry. (pp. 256-257)

According to Rotello, then, many or most gay-marriage activists have a decidedly un-conservative view of marriage itself. But if gay-marriage advocates actually reject monogamous marriage as a family ideal, what sort of families do they favor instead?

That question was answered this past July, when hundreds of activists, artists, and academics signed on to a manifesto entitled, "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage." That statement called for government recognition and benefits to be expanded beyond traditional marriage to cover a wide variety of family forms, from extended immigrant households, to single-parent households, to "queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple in two households," to unmarried domestic partners, to polygamous/polyamorous households with three or more partners, to many other family forms.

In Part I of "The Confession," I showed that the united political front behind same-sex marriage is sustained by a pattern of censorship and self-censorship regarding the ultimate policy preferences of the movement. Here in Part II, I show that Rotello was right. Many, if not most, of the gay and lesbian organizations which have signed on to the battle for same-sex marriage do not take marriage itself as their goal. Instead, these advocacy groups are broadly supportive of the radical family agenda announced in the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage manifesto. By following the public response of gay-marriage activists to the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage manifesto, we can see that the policy goals of family radicals are largely shared, even by most mainstream supporters of same-sex marriage.

Domestic Partners
Around the time the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement was released, a controversy broke out over news that the Boston Globe had told its gay employees to marry their partners or face losing their domestic-partnership benefits. That decision by the Globe (a division of the New York Times Company) was touted by pro-gay-marriage "conservatives," like Jonathan Rauch, as evidence that same-sex marriage would bolster the social significance of marriage, at the expense of other family forms.

Yet reaction to the Globe decision within the gay community told a different story. An investigation of the Globe controversy by journalist Zak Szymanski, published in the Bay Area Reporter, made it clear that many mainstream supporters of same-sex marriage actually condemned the Globe's decision, and promised to fight such policy shifts in the future should they multiply beyond this one "isolated incident."

According to Szymanski, "Many national LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] groups, despite their large investment in securing gay marriage, agree that there is a problem with a society that values marriage over all other family forms." For example, Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a major spokesman in the battle for same-sex marriage, said, "We're deeply disappointed by the Globe's decision, and we do not feel that benefits should flow only from marriage, because a married couple does not reflect the reality of the American family, gay or straight.” Michelle Granda, of GLAD, which Szymanski calls "the group that is widely credited with winning same-sex marriage in Massachusetts," said, "We have always believed families are configured in many ways and that marriage is not the answer for all families."

Granda went on to point out that, "when other Massachusetts companies previously announced similar intentions to drop DP [domestic partnership] coverage, marriage activists expressed their concerns and were able to reverse such changes. One employer, the Dana-Farber Cancer Center, not only reversed its decision but expanded its DP system to cover opposite-sex partners."

Let's pause to consider what's happened here. A spokesperson for GLAD, the organization credited with bringing gay marriage to Massachusetts, has just boasted about undermining marriage for gays and straights alike. According to Granda, same-sex "marriage activists" objected to Dana-Farber's restriction of benefits to married couples, and instead prompted an expansion of benefits for unmarried domestic partners, gay and straight. Marriage activists undermining marriage. Here we have a clear indication of the family radicalism that hides beneath the only apparent conservatism of same-sex marriage advocacy groups.

Szymanski goes on to quote Shannon Minter, of San Francisco's National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has strongly backed the movement for same-sex marriage: "I don't think same-sex marriage means we aren't also fighting for protections for other people." Minter went on to celebrate the way in which the movement for same-sex marriage has actually promoted legal recognition for non-marital partnerships.

While Jonathan Rauch has claimed that the adoption of formal same-sex marriage would put a stop to the creation of various forms of "marriage lite," Szymanski quotes Molly McKay, media director of Marriage Equality USA, making the opposite claim: :McKay believes, as do many marriage activists, that redefining the family through winning same-sex marriage is one of the best ways to earn protections for families outside of marriage...[Said McKay,] 'By allowing us to be married it will allow us to enter into a conversation, as equals, about who is next.;"

IN RE T.K.Y.
Supreme Court of Tennessee
August 28, 2006

Trial court found that biological father of child born to woman married to another man was the legal father only to be reversed on appeal.

The supreme court held that the biological father was the father for purposes of the parentage law because that law is concerned with establishing biological paternity. The court also held the rights of a biological father trumped the rights of any other person asserting paternity and recognized constitutional protection for these rights.

HINSHAW V. HINSHAW
Kentucky Court of AppealsOctober 13, 2006

After divorce, wife alleged (later proved through DNA testing) for the first time that ex-husband was not her child’s father. When the ex-husband was granted child custody, the mother appealed.

The court held that the doctrine of equitable estoppel prevented the mother from denying the husband’s paternity after she had treated him as the father and encouraged a parent-child relationship between the husband and child.

ADOPTION OF P.N.
Utah Supreme Court
October 27, 2006

A man contracted with a woman to serve as a surrogate to be inseminated with his sperm and relinquish the baby. After birth and relinquishment, the father was arrested and the mother took custody. She began arranging an open adoption with a married couple. After signing a second relinquishment, the mother changed her mind and eventually both parents opposed the adoption petition. The trial court allowed the parents to intervene but granted permanent custody to the couple with no visitation for either parent.

The Utah Supreme Court reversed. They held the trial court could have decided the married couple were suitable as temporary custodians but could not grant permanent custody unless the parents were found unfit. The court thus ordered the trial judge to hold hearings to determine which biological parent should be given custody.

If Heather Mills makes good on her threat to release the tapes of the shouting matches she (allegedly) engaged in with Paul McCartney, there is at least a chance that tabloid readers will be entertained and titillated by some bits of high or low drama. But if the domestic quarrels of ordinary people – people who are neither billionaires nor rock stars – were taped and transcribed, the response in most cases would be wonder at how a conversation that began so innocuously could so quickly escalate into a verbal conflagration. Most domestic quarrels start not when some big issue like war, homelessness, the deficit or gay marriage is raised, but when one party says something perfectly ordinary and apparently nonprovocative – "Let's go to the movies tonight" or "Should we have dessert?" or "Did you call your mother?" – only to find that, nevertheless, a provocation has occurred.

The provoker – or, rather, the person accused of being one – will immediately claim innocence: "I was just asking a simple question." "I didn't mean anything by it beyond what the words literally say." "I certainly didn't mean what you took me to mean." "Why did you think I meant that?" "I would never mean that." The claim of innocence is itself not so innocent; it is at bottom an accusation of the other for having not only misunderstood an irreproachable intention, but for having impugned an irreproachable character. "Am I the kind of person who would mean what you took me to mean?" is the implicit (and sometimes explicit) question, and no answer given to it will put out the fire. If the answer is "No, you're not," the response will be, "So why did you think I was a minute ago?" And if the answer is "Yes, you are," the response will be anything from a demand for evidence – "Tell me, just when have I acted like that?" – to a detonating of the nuclear option: "If you think that, why did you marry me (or come to live with me) in the first place?"

It is tempting to think that domestic quarrels are the occasional eruptions that disturb the otherwise tranquil surface of a relationship, but in fact the reverse is true: strife, in progress or just around the corner, is the default condition of domesticity, and tranquillity is the anomaly. Perhaps that is why when the poet John Milton needed a plot device that would get Adam and Eve from the happy perfection of Eden to the act of disobedience and the Fall, he invented – it is not in Genesis – a domestic quarrel. Milton's Eve says to Adam ("Paradise Lost," book 9), This garden grows so quickly that we're always falling behind in our labors, especially when we stop to talk; maybe we'd get more done if we separate and work in different areas. Adam responds, Does this mean you're tired of me? Stung, Eve replies, Why would you say that? Are you afraid I can't manage by myself? And with that, they're off to the races, serpent waiting. Later, when the apple is eaten and they see it was a bad idea, each blames the other: he blames her for having left his side, and she blames him for having let her. The poet draws the moral, and it is one we all recognize: "Thus they in mutual accusation spent/The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning,/And of their vain contest appeared no end."

Is there no way out of this unhappy spiral? Is mutual accusation the only possible career of a quarrel? Can't we learn from our mistakes? Well, there are three things to know about domestic quarrels. The first is that they have no beginning. There is no bell that announces the passage from ordinary and amiable conversation to conflict. You only know you're in one when it has already been going on for a while. In this genre, in medias res is all there is.

Once you do tumble to the fact that you're already in the middle of a quarrel – and this is the second thing to know – you will try to get out of it by returning to the beginning that never was; and this means that you will go back to your first remark (or what you take to be your first; a standard move in this game is to contest the moment of its non-origin) and vigorously assert its blamelessness. In short, you will try to clarify and sanitize your words by producing more words, but of course the more words you produce, the more weapons you provide the person who is sitting across from you at the breakfast table. (And who is he or she anyway? How did I ever get mixed up with anyone like that?) Every exculpation you offer for your previous utterances will be heard as evidence of a new sin, and every attempt to absolve yourself of that sin will generate another. The mathematics of these situations are exponential.

The third thing to know about domestic quarrels is the most discouraging: Even if you know the first two things and know them so well that you can write columns about them, that knowledge is of no help whatsoever when it comes to fording the rapids of your own domestic life. The Professor of Quarrelology is no better a practitioner of the art than anyone else. I just got back from a long trip and my wife greeted me by saying how much she had enjoyed being alone in the house. And then I said … Well, you know.

:". . .So then, is the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement, as Rauch would have it, just irrelevant old hat? Not at all. Calls for polyamory and other forms of family radicalism may be nothing new to those already familiar with the history of the gay community’s internal debates, or with the quiet plans of legal academics. Yet a collective and very public declaration of the family-radical platform, endorsed by scores of prominent scholars and other nationally known figures, signals a new phase in the struggle. Once again, as in the early 1990s, the radicals are out in the open, unwilling to silence themselves for the sake of a united front.

Take Michael Bronski, a radical academic, popular New England columnist, and long-time proponent of same-sex marriage. Bronski favors same-sex marriage for its potential to destabilize the traditional organizing principles of Western culture. In a piece explaining why he'd signed the Beyond Gay Marriage manifesto, Bronski said that he and his fellow family radicals were tired of being treated like "skunks at a garden party" for honestly owning up to their radical reasons for supporting gay marriage. Bronski then told the story of a radio appearance in which his conservative opponent had claimed that gay marriage would "change society as we know it." Instead of denying it, Bronski agreed with this family traditionalist that gay marriage would indeed provoke a broader cultural transformation, adding that this was a good thing. "That afternoon," Bronski recalled, "I received a barrage of e-mails from marriage equality supporters complaining that I had committed a major faux pas and should not do media on the issue of marriage again unless I was willing to state the 'official' marriage equality line, which is that gay marriage is about nothing more than equal rights for couples who love one another."

In the aftermath of the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement, it was easy to see that the "'official'" marriage equality line" has served to disguise the views of many same-sex marriage supporters. Numerous reports in the mainstream media, and in the gay community's own press, described the censorship and self-censorship that has kept the reality of marriage radicalism out of the public eye. The New York Times reported that gay family radicals "say they have muffled their own voice by censoring themselves." Yet now, said the Times, these radicals "increasingly feel that they have nothing to lose [by speaking out] given 'that there has been defeat after political defeat.'"

Meanwhile, Geoffrey Kors, a leading California gay-marriage activist, noted that the movement's silence on polyamory is not necessarily a matter of actual opposition to the practice, but simply about "not allowing the right wing to steer the conversation." Molly McKay, media director of Marriage Equality USA, spoke of the need to limit some conflicts and conversations to "internal dialogue." Otherwise, said McKay, it could be "very confusing for non-gay allies" who support gay marriage on the assumption that the gay community wants marriage for its own sake. McKay was concerned that mainstream support for same-sex marriage could suffer if the broader public began to think that "your own community [i.e. the gay community] doesn’t support this issue."

. . .With Crain and others blasting the radicals' new-found honesty, Joseph De Filippis, of Queers for Economic Justice, chief spokesman for the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage manifesto, tried to put out the fire. De Filippis maintained that the statement had actually been meant to "promote discussion within the LGBT community not mainstream America." Yet having recruited nationally known allies like Steinem, West, Lerner, and Ehrenreich, that claim was hardly credible. . .

So Robert P. George was right. The Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement means that something important and new is going on. Marriage and family radicals have cast aside years of self-censorship and are broadcasting their agenda to the world (even as an angry, strategically-based response by prominent backers of same-sex marriage has begun to put the muzzle back on). . ."

"Saying they are concerned that a walkout by legislators could scuttle a vote on a bill to ban same-sex marriage, the four Roman Catholic bishops of Massachusetts are exhorting the state's 3 million Catholics to demand action.

The bishops, including Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, are also urging Catholics to go to the State House Nov. 9, the date the vote is scheduled, to voice their support for restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. The letter asks Catholics to "pray for success on this critical vote."

But religious supporters of same-sex marriage are fighting back. They have printed thousands of copies of a brochure titled, "Why We Don't Vote on Civil Rights," for distribution in churches and synagogues. They are also preparing to publish newspaper ads signed by a group of lay Catholics declaring that O'Malley doesn't speak for them on the issue of marriage. . ."

:"A week after the New Jersey Supreme Court injected new energy into the gay marriage issue, how is it playing out in Peoria?

President Bush came out swinging on Monday: "For decades, activist judges have tried to redefine America by court order," Bush said. "Just this last week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and should be defended." According to the Associated Press, "the line earned Bush by far his most sustained applause at a rally of 5,000 people aimed at boosting former GOP Rep. Max Burns (news, bio, voting record)' effort to unseat a Democratic incumbent. . ."

". . .53% said they would vote for it, 36% said they would vote against it, and 11% were undecided."

:". . .So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory. What about those in the other place? It seems Irish Catholic peasants wondered about the unfortunate souls in hell. After all, if the souls in hell are left out when we celebrate those in heaven and purgatory, they might be unhappy enough to cause trouble. So it became customary to bang pots and pans on All Hallows Even to let the damned know they were not forgotten. Thus, in Ireland at least, all the dead came to be remembered--even if the clergy were not terribly sympathetic to Halloween and never allowed All Damned Day into the church calendar.

But that still isn’t our celebration of Halloween. Our traditions on this holiday center on dressing up in fanciful costumes, which isn’t Irish at all. Rather, this custom arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. Late medieval Europe was hit by repeated outbreaks of the bubonic plague--the Black Death--and it lost about half its population. It is not surprising that Catholics became more concerned about the afterlife.

. . .But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween; and the Irish, who had Halloween, did not dress up. How the two became mingled probably happened first in the British colonies of North America during the 1700s, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. The Irish focus on hell gave the French masquerades an even more macabre twist.

But as every young ghoul knows, dressing up isn’t the point; the point is getting as many goodies as possible. Where on earth did "trick or treat" come in?

"Treat or treat" is perhaps the oddest and most American addition to Halloween and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.

During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England, Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds of priests were martyred.

Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a Catholic uprising against the oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot was foiled on November 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot fizzled.

November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, became a great celebration in England, and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes for their celebration: trick or treat!

Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. But by the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun to give up, so eventually it moved to October 31, the day of the Irish-French masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.

The mixture of various immigrant traditions we know as Halloween had become a fixture in the United States by the early 1800s. To this day, it remains unknown in Europe, even in the countries from which some of the customs originated.

"Why are state judges such as myself so concerned about strengthening marriage?

Start with the basics: Fragmenting families are flooding our court dockets. Since I became a trial judge in 1989, the percentage of domestic relations cases has risen sharply; they now account for 65 percent of all cases in Georgia at the Superior Court level. Last year more than 14,000 children were in the care of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, and nearly 24,000 were admitted to a youth detention center. One out of every four Georgia children under 18 has a case with the Office of Child Support Enforcement. . .

As a judge I am often frustrated that I must work within a system designed only to pick up the pieces after families have already fallen apart or failed to come together. We must work to prevent family fragmentation, because the consequences for children and society are severe.

If we look for solutions, we will find them. What we do not yet know how to accomplish, we can learn. Americans believe that problems, no matter how difficult, should be addressed and not merely endured. Whether it is racism, crime or poverty, Americans believe that we can find ways to make a difference. Accepting the decline of marriage as inevitable means giving up on far too many of our children. They deserve better than that."

"Personally, I think the problem is that "full disclosre" isn't really full enough. How much better would it be if when you used that phrase, you actually had to reveal something interesting?

Full disclosure: two years ago at a conference, John Chapman and I had a little too much tequila and ended up shagging like minks for three glorious nights. I still get a little misty-eyed every time I walk into a new hotel room and see those little mints on the pillow. Neither my husband nor his wife were aware of this little interlude. I mean, until I announced it publicly here.

Full disclosure: I met Malcolm at Harvard, where I used to cheat off of him in calculus exams. Now I have to invite him to my annual Christmas party, have dinner with him and his appalling wife three times a year, and say nice things about all his books. Kids, let this be a lesson to you.

Full disclosure: Andrea was my boss at the Brookings Institution, and I've always had my eye on her husband. Frankly, now that their marriage is on the rocks, I'm hoping that he will come to me for consolation during the inevitable messy divorce.


Full disclosure: George Donaldson is the head of the alumni admissions committee for the Dalton School, where my little Katie will be applying next year. . ."

"But for Cynthia and Lucy Vandenberg, the landmark ruling is also about another M-word: money.

The Vandenbergs, who have been partners for 12 years, have been forced to open their checkbooks repeatedly over the years to pay thousands of dollars in taxes on health benefits and for legal transactions that married couples rarely face.

There was the $1,500 to change their surnames, for instance, the $1,400 or so in taxes they paid annually for additional health benefits, and the $1,000 they spent so one could adopt the biological child of the other. . .

Now they wonder how the court’s decision will affect their next child, a son Lucy is carrying. Will Cynthia Vandenberg have to pay to adopt him?

The Vandenbergs, who live in Mill Hill, a gentrifying neighborhood in downtown Trenton, have formed a family with another gay couple, John Hatch, 44, and David Henderson, 48, who live a block and a half away and have been together 18 years.

In a 20-page parental contract signed by all four of them, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Henderson each agreed to be the biological father of one of the Vandenbergs’ children, to give up his parental rights so the biological mother’s partner could adopt the child, and to share in parenting responsibilities. . ."

"IN 1947, the county clerk in Los Angeles refused to marry Andrea Perez and Sylvester Davis. They were of different races, and a California law said that "all marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mongolians, members of the Malay race or mulattoes are illegal." The next year, the California Supreme Court, by a vote of 4 to 3, struck down that law in Perez v. Sharp.

In 2003, in another 4-to-3 decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court authorized gay marriages, and it invoked the Perez case as a model. . .

The New Jersey court did not mention the Perez case by name and it said that interracial marriage was not a useful touchstone in thinking about same-sex marriage. . .

Gay-marriage advocates say the logic of the Perez decision applies directly to gay unions. After all, they point out, the decision said that "the essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage with the person of one's choice."

Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, writing for the majority in the 2003 decision, agreed. "In this case, as in Perez," she wrote, "a statute deprives individuals of access to an institution of fundamental legal, personal and social significance — the institution of marriage — because of a single trait." It made no difference, she wrote, that one trait was skin color and the other sexual orientation.

Advocates for gay marriage say there is much to be learned from Perez. "No one is saying that the experiences of racial minorities are identical to the experiences of same-sex couples," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. "There are always differences, but there are profound similarities."

Opponents of gay marriage, on the other hand, say the judicial and legislative aftermath of Perez is more telling than the decision itself. Although 29 other states had laws barring interracial marriage at the time of the Perez case, no other state supreme court followed California. Instead, over time many state legislatures repealed the bans; in some states the laws remained on the books, but went largely unenforced.

In the end, it took two decades before the United States Supreme Court struck down in 1967 all of the 16 remaining antimiscegenation laws, in Loving v. Virginia, involving a Virginia couple who had been convicted of violating that state’s interracial marriage ban.

This history, opponents of gay marriage say, shows that the Perez court usurped the democratic process, imposing a decision that most of the country, however unfairly, was not ready to embrace.

Maggie Gallagher, the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which opposes gay marriage, said the contrast between the political landscape when the Supreme Court acted in 1967 and that facing proponents of gay marriage today is stark and telling.

"When the court moved to strike down the interracial marriage laws," Ms. Gallagher said, "the democratic process was in the process of getting rid of these laws. What's happening now is exactly the opposite: more and more states are moving to protect marriage.". . .