The op-ed I've been waiting for regarding gay marriage

OP-ED: "Why I Now Support Gay Marriage," by Tom Suozzi, New York Times, 13 June 2009.

Good piece.

Gist: civil unions just don't cut it (they smack of separate but equal systems), but civil marriages are no threat to religiously sanctioned marriages.

So you allow same-sex civil marriages to give gay couples all the same legal rights as straight ones, but you also allow churches to opt out at their discretion. There are and always will be plenty of civil laws that churches essentially opt-out of--like the right to have an abortion (legal, but not acceptable in the eyes of many churches). The same will always be true for gay marriage. But since the government has always granted non-believers the same marriage rights (civil marriages) as believers, such rights must inevitably be extended to gays.

Only fault I take with piece: I could have used a listing of the deficiencies of civil unions compared to civil marriages.

I think most of this debate occurs in a knowledge vacuum, the predominant question being, "Should we let gays get married just like heterosexuals do?"

I guess I'd like to see the debate framed more popularly as: "These are the rights denied to same-sex civil union participants that would be granted to same-sex civil marriage participants. [List.] Now, when it comes to your siblings or your kids or your good friends, do you think it's correct for America to deny gays those rights, so long as your church would still be able to decide on its own whether or not it wanted to solemnize such marriages according to its spiritual traditions?"

That, I think, would be a fairly easy evolution to pursue politically.

So what is the list?

Comments

[Patrick O'Connor]

Such a list would be useful.

When I wanted to marry my non-Catholic wife in the Church we needed to meet with the pastor of my parish for a series of discussions before he would agree to marry us. I don't think I would have had some recourse in the legal system to challenge his decision. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. It's the 1st Amendment. Do we need new law on the issue?

Generally I don't like unnecessary statutes but if such is needed in this case to calm the fear of gay marriage opponents that their churches will be awash in litigation, so be it.

Btw, those sessions with Fr. George contained lessons about married life which we continue to value 25 years later.

[Tom Kelley]

Regarding the church still being able to decide, it depends whether the ACLU would try to convert the inch into a mile. Ultimately, I think the church could live with a truce, but the ACLU couldn't.

Forgetting the semantic antics and the boon to the legal profession, from a legislative perspective, I'd rather see equal rights for all than the proposed extension of special rights only to gay couples. Is a son/daughter who ends up caring for one or both parents for 20 years any less deserving than a spouse when it comes to SSI survivor benefits and other partner benefits/protections?

[Tom Kelley]

I'm not an opponent of gay unions/partnerships/etc, and haven't been a practicing member of the Roman Catholic church in about three decades, but I am a realist in terms of the abuses and potential abuses of special/protected status.

If marriage is marriage, regardless of who, then a priest denying a gay couple the right to marry in the church ends up being a straightforward case of discrimination against a protected class. Patrick and Mrs. O'Connor aren't (likely to be) members of a protected class, so if the priest had said no go, they would not have a cause for legal action.

I'm no fan of additional statutes either, but unless the church and others are guaranteed freedom of choice with regard to recognition of various types of marriages, we'll end up with a hornet's nest of litigation.

The answer here is equal rights for all, not an extension of special rights for some.