Marriage?

One of the hazards of my line of work (for today's purposes, being gay) is being discussed in the third person while you're right there in the room. These days, thanks to the recent California referendum, the topic of whether or not Steve and I should be allowed to get married is on everybody's lips. As usual, nobody's asked us what we think, I guess because the assumption that we want to marry is automatic. Well-meaning straight friends wish us well out of straight guilt, while the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the big gay lobbying group, assumes that of course we want to get married and then presumes to speak for us to Congress and the rest of the civilized world.

So just to remind you I'm here and do have an opinion, here it is, unsolicited though it may be:

The HRC was wrong-headed beyond belief when it insisted on "marriage rights," tossing that red-meat "M" word into the ring to be ravished by the religious right. The right was in the ascendancy from the White House on down, they owned the pulpit (word choice well-considered), and they had and continue to have a field day rousing the bible-toting rabble with our attack on the holy sacrament of marriage. Like that other completely private matter, abortion, how I choose to conduct my life with the person I love has become one of those polarizing public topics that just won't go away. It didn't have to be that way. Civil unions could have been quietly recognized, state by state, until, before you knew it, you had a defacto national consensus. The federal government would have been forced to follow suit. "Marriage" as co-opted by the HRC would have had nothing to do with it.

First: most gay couples are already able to cobble together legal protections equivalent to those automatically conveyed by what's conventionally called marriage. Steve and I own everything together, from our house (right of survivorship) to our joint bank account. We have given each other legal and medical powers of attorney. Our end-of-life documents make it clear that we consider everything in our life equally and jointly owned. In short, in a legal sense, we are already "married."

(Here is an illustrative sidebar to the matter of health care. I discovered a few years ago during a medical emergency in Delaware that despite the scary bugaboo about hospitals having the option to ignore medical powers of attorney on moral grounds if they disagree with our living arrangement, HIPAA and standard medical practice make the nature of our relationship irrelevant. First, HIPAA forms simply ask, "whom should be contacted in the event of an emergency?" "Relationship" is not part of the question. And second, in order for treatment and follow-up care to continue after hospitalization, doctors need to know who will be the primary caregiver. I was accepted in that role with gratitude and the utmost respect, no questions asked. If the hospital had insisted on Steve's unavailable blood next-of-kin, it was clear that I could have sued for malpractice and won.)

So we are as well-protected as we can be within the present legal framework. But there is a behemoth in the room: no federal acknowledgement of our relationship. Steve can't legally name me as a survivor for his Social Security payments, nor can he receive any share of my federal reitrement pension after my death. When Steve's job ends in June, 2009, he will lose his medical insurance, and I can't put him on my federal policy. Remember that thing the great friend of gays Bill Clinton signed into law, the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA)? I had thought that until that was repealed, we would have no recourse and just have to deal with harsh reality, as we always have.

But lo and behold, there is a glimmer of light. A move is afoot in Congress to work around DOMA. Last September, there was actually a committee hearing, chaired by Senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Susan Collins of Maine (that is: the Homeland Security Committee!), to explore ways to implement equal benefits for same-sex couples in the federal work force. The issue is being cast in terms of civil rights and homeland security, the rationale for the latter being that the government has to be at least as competitive as the private-sector institutions that already have these equality protections on their books. The Feds face a serious brain drain as Boomers retire, and the best minds are needed to protect the country. Many of those good minds happen to be in love with people of the same sex.

DOMA will remain as a fig leaf. Essentially, Lieberman and Collins are saying, "we don't care what you call it. Keep your 'marriage.' For the security of the nation, these people need equal protection and we're working to see to it that they get it."

So call it marriage, call it civil union, call it whatever you want. It's all the same to me, and as far as the government is concerned, the "civil" part is the essence of marriage, anyway. In a church wedding, the clergy pronounces the happy couple husband and wife "by the powers vested" in him/her by the state. The pronouncement may be part of a fancy ceremony with religious trappings, but as far as the government is concerned, God has nothing to do with it. Go ask any Justice of the Peace: marriage is a legal contract. And that's all we want.