{"id":1848,"date":"2005-09-20T00:40:50","date_gmt":"2005-09-20T07:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/09\/19\/gay-marriage-isnt-a-radical-step-it%e2%80%99s-just-the-next-step\/"},"modified":"2005-09-20T00:40:50","modified_gmt":"2005-09-20T07:40:50","slug":"gay-marriage-isnt-a-radical-step-it%e2%80%99s-just-the-next-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1848","title":{"rendered":"Gay marriage isn't a radical step; it's just the next step."},"content":{"rendered":"

From today’s New York Times<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

There’s nothing like a touch of real-world experience to inject some reason into the inflammatory national debate over gay marriages. Take Massachusetts, where the state’s highest court held in late 2003 that under the State Constitution, same-sex couples have a right to marry. The State Legislature moved to undo that decision last year by approving a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and create civil unions as an alternative. But this year, when precisely the same measure came up for a required second vote, it was defeated by a thumping margin of 157 to 39.<\/p>\n

The main reason for the flip-flop is that some 6,600 same-sex couples have married over the past year with nary a sign of adverse effects. The sanctity of heterosexual marriages has not been destroyed. Public morals have not gone into a tailspin. Legislators who supported gay marriage in last year’s vote have been re-elected. Gay couples, many of whom had been living together monogamously for years, have rejoiced at official recognition of their commitment.<\/p>\n

As a Republican leader explained in justifying his vote switch: “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.” A Democrat attributed his change of heart to the beneficial effects he saw “when I looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The anti-marriage equality people aren’t done in Massachusetts yet, of course; they have a new ballot measure to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions, which the voters will get to consider in 2008. But a March 2005 Boston Globe<\/em> poll found that 56% of Massachusetts voters favor same-sex marriage<\/a>, and that percentage will only increase over the next three years. I expect that the numbers that favor civil unions, which the ballot measure will also ban, are even higher. Unless equality advocates in Massachusetts totally mess things up, I don’t see how they can lose in 2008.<\/p>\n

The anti-equality line in Massachusetts has now been defeated in both the courtrooms and in the legislature. When it gets defeated in a voter ballot in 2008, what new excuse will equality opponents find to refuse to acknowledge legitimate government actions?<\/p>\n

I was particularly struck by the Republican the Times <\/em>quoted, who said “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry who could not before.” Damn straight. The odd thing about the fight for marriage equality is that, in and of itself, it won’t change very much.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong – for those lesbian and gay couples who want to get married, it’ll be a huge difference, and I’m outraged at the injustice done to same-sex couples unfairly barred from equality.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, marriage equality is not a radical change, in and of itself. Marriage equality is just the latest step of two long-existing trends.<\/p>\n

One trend is the increasing gender neutrality of marriage; although there’s still a long ways to go, the “separate spheres”\u009d that once defined marriage have become overlapping spheres. Although stay at home dads are still a small minority, their numbers are increasing, and the idea no longer seems outlandish. The number of households in which both mom and dad contribute to the homemaking and the breadwinning has increased to the point that it’s probably the norm (although most mothers still do an unfairly large share of the shared labor).<\/p>\n

There have been a number of laws that have changed as this trend towards greater sex equality has continued. Wives can now own property independently, have the right to refuse sex with their husbands, and women in general have many more protections from discrimination in the marketplace and workforce.<\/p>\n

As marriage becomes less and less about “wives and husbands fulfill two strictly-bounded separate roles,”\u009d the rule that only women may marry men and vice-versa has lost its basis in our society.<\/p>\n

The second trend, of course, is the increasing acceptance of sexual minorities as equal human beings and equal citizens. The increasing acceptance of queer equality has been going on since the Stonewall riot, at least, and marriage equality is just the latest phase of this long-term movement.<\/p>\n

Both sex equality and queer rights are important long-term movements in our society – and both of them, over the last several generations, are radical changes. Same-sex marriage, however, is just one more effect of these larger social movements. Gay marriage isn’t a radical step; it’s just the next step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From today’s New York Times: There’s nothing like a touch of real-world experience to inject some reason into the inflammatory national debate over gay marriages. Take Massachusetts, where the state’s highest court held in late 2003 that under the State … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}