Yesterday’s mainstream news media were widely reporting that, during Thursday’s vice presidential debate, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin were in agreement about gay marriage.
That wasn’t what I heard.
What I heard, was Biden carefully parse his words to a phrase Palin couldn’t disagree with (or was possibly confused by).
Here is the exchange, as reported by Reuters news service:
“No one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed,” said Palin, referring to John McCain, her running mate in the November 4 election.
Such rights already exist in Alaska, where Palin serves as governor.
“In an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple,” said Biden, referring to his Democratic partner, Barack Obama.
Asked if he would support gay marriage, Biden said: “No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage.”
Palin was likewise succinct. “My answer is the same as his and it is that I do not,” she said.
So here’s the thing – I think that Biden implied that the government shouldn’t be in the marriage business at all.
A few years ago, I was at a party making polite chit-chat with someone about gay marriage. This was in the long gray area between San Francisco Mayor Gavin’s Newsom’s initial decision to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians and the recent state supreme court decision formalizing that right state wide. The person I was speaking with said he wasn’t in favor of gay marriage. I’m sure I looked surprised because he hurried to explain that he wasn’t in favor of marriage at all. He thought everyone – gay or straight – should be entitled to civil unions with the same rights, but that marriages should be left to churches.
In the years since then, this conversation has stuck with me and I find myself mulling it over. I find I’ve come to similar conclusions.
In a true separation of church and state, churches shouldn’t be granting government-recognized marriages, and the government shouldn’t decide who is appropriate to be married in the eyes of God.
Yep, I’m talking about straight people too.
The decision should be made at the highest level of government affected by the unions. Therefore, since we pay federal taxes, this should be a federal decision.
This way, any adult couple in the land wanting to form a union could, and would, be granted equal rights and responsibilities. Period.
The religious community has been the biggest stakeholder in the battle against gay marriage, because gay marriage conflicts with various religious tenets. Restricting everyone to civil union would effectively defang this opposition.
Religious and spiritual institutions could, and should, continue to perform marriage ceremonies within their own doctrine. They could choose to marry gays and lesbians, or not. (Heck, gay churches could choose not to marry straight people.) But they would have no say in who could create a civil union, and rites of marriage would not confer any of the rights of civil union.
Everyone who wants the rights of union could have them through civil agreement, and choose to be married – within a specific doctrine, or in a ceremony of their design – on top of that agreeement. No one would have to compromise their spiritual ideals, whether I agree with them or not.
This would be a true separation of church and state in this matter.
I think this was what I heard Joe Biden hint at on Thursday night.
Please understand, this doesn’t mean I’m against the concept of gay marriage. I’ll take what I can get as far as equalizing existing rights.
I urge everyone who reads this to vote no on California’s Proposition 8, which is attempting to create a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage. I don’t believe any nation can be strong while it continues to discriminate against any group, or parcels out fundamental rights. I also believe that allowing religious doctrine to dictate the rights of a nation’s people – any people – smacks of theocracy.
I also believe that gays and lesbians should be able to marry everywhere, not just in California, and I’m suggesting a plan that I think would level the playing field across the country.
I’d give up the right to marry in California if it meant that all couples, gay and straight, across the country could create civil unions with the same rights of partnership.
That would be equality.
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Great way to look at what Bidin said. I so hope you are correct and we all get the opportunity to find out.
Churches and individuals managed their own marriages and divorces until fairly recently. Jump the broom, then find someone else, whatever.
When the government started creating laws based on the status of marriage, it became pretty complicated. People would marry, then “marry” someone else… or claim to be that person’s spouse and thus due an inheritance, or alimony – big mess!
So churches and individuals asked the government to define marriage for them. There was a central place to register your marriage on paper to prove its existence, as well as to prove your divorce.
Today, if a straight couple doesn’t go to church to have their marriage formalized, they essentially have a civil union already.
So now we are just arguing semantics – marriage, civil union – can two people make a commitment to each other with all the rights and responsibilities assumed?
Carole,
You raise a good point. I don’t know if the rights and responsibilities of civil union vary between the states that allow them.
In California, domestic partnership used to be treated as the lesser sibling of marriage. People essentially formed DPs at their local Kinko’s (or with a notary), and dissolved them in a similar fashion.
Then the law changed and said that DPs had to go through a dissolution process, with mediation and court paperwork, that was identical to divorce. This applied even if the DP was formed before the dissolution requirements.
So, before same-sex marriage became legal, there was period of about two years in California where people who became DPs for reasons that didn’t seem — at the time they signed on the dotted line — to carry the full weight and responsibilities of marriage (shared partner benefits at work as one example), found themselves having to go through a full-on divorce, with community property division, etc.
Get that: Gay marriage still wasn’t legal and gay divorce was mandatory.
(Don’t attorneys always find a way to get involved?)
So I agree it may all end up being semantics, and I think Biden may have been playing with that.
But I can guarantee that Sarah Palin doesn’t think the difference between marriage and civil union is purely semantic. I’m sure she thinks they’re two entirely different types of bonds, designed for two different classes of people: Straights and Sinners.
Very good point, and that’s why I take issue with the “marriage is for one man plus one woman and civil unions are for everyone else” concept.
Actually a straight couple I know of was living together for 5 years… oops, triggered Texas common law marriage laws… and had to get a legal divorce.
Most states don’t recognize common law marriage any more, since it’s so easy to actually marry these days.
Back to the point, would we have to create 2 sets of laws? Then someone will update the marriage law, oops, forget the paperwork, nobody updated the civil union law, let’s trigger another court case.
In a way, I’m encouraged to see it getting down to semantics rather than attitudes about what is okay and not okay in peoples’ personal lives. But it feels like sidestepping the issue. Like saying “oh, the states should decide for themselves, like with Roe v. Wade.”
Well, with McCain’s 7 kids and her 5, statistically speaking, 1.2 of them are gay. A friend in the White House?
I will surprise you by saying that I actually agree with this concept! That would certainly solve the issue of who is stepping on whose toes, as far as rights and liberties go.