« Congolese Women and Girls Suffering the InsufferableThe Coming Fury of an Angry America »

Marriage vs. civil unions: Separate is never equal

January 10th, 2010

Mary Shaw

The New Jersey State Senate recently rejected a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the Garden State.

Some people try to justify this state-sponsored discrimination by saying that same-sex marriage isn't necessary in New Jersey because that state offers civil unions for gay couples who want to enjoy similar benefits.

But they don't want to call it marriage. They want to maintain a heterosexual monopoly on the word "marriage". It's "separate but equal", they might say. But I contend that separate is never equal.

Having a separate institution for committed same-sex couples is no more equal than were the black alternatives to the whites-only facilities of the Jim Crow era. True equality is just not possible where you have an "us" vs. "them" dichotomy.

Many people cite religious reasons for opposing marriage equality for same-sex couples. They say that the Bible condemns homosexuality. It's the word of God, they say, and as good "Christians" they must live by it. However, the Bible also condones slavery, and forbids working on the Sabbath under punishment of death. I have yet to see the homophobes in recent decades give equal time to these other "words of God".

But that should be a moot argument anyway in this nation. You see, the religious apologists fail to recognize -- or refuse to recognize -- the fact that the U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation. They conveniently ignore the language of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the government from establishing a religion, and which protects each person's right to practice -- or not practice -- any faith without government interference. In other words, you cannot impose your own religious beliefs on others. So religion is not a sound justification on which to judge the validity of civil marriage.

Some opponents of same-sex marriage like to repeat the tired old talking point that allowing gay couples to wed would destroy the institution of marriage. But they can't really answer the question of how. Anyone who feels that his own heterosexual marriage would be threatened if gays could marry obviously has some very deep personal issues that cannot be fixed through legislation. I know a number of gay couples in loving, monogamous relationships that have lasted much longer than my heterosexual marriage did. Could this be what really scares the bigots?

Why can't the homophobes just live and let live? Why must they point a finger at others and judge what their neighbors can and cannot do in the privacy of their own relationships? How would those homophobes feel if the shoe were on the other foot and someone tried to tell them whom they may or may not marry?

And so I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes on the subject, by James Carville: "I was against gay marriage until I found out I didn't have to have one."

Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com

No feedback yet

Voices

Voices

  • Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic The 2018 Skripal Attack Case The current orchestrated Western policy of total Russophobia, directed by Collective West, can be recorded to start by the British Cabinet of Theresa May – the focal servant-dog to US global…
  • By Sally Dugman This proactive Palestinian Pulverizers of humans, D. Trump who is indirectly responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Palestinian people of all ages, has no standing to say something like this utterly stupid statement about Putin:…
  • Tracy Turner When the Republic Betrays, the Body Must Answer Protest is not a right—it is a judgment passed upon power. A corrupt state standing above law and beyond justice forfeits its legitimacy, and we, the people, are compelled to answer—not with…
  • Tracy Turner The Reclamation of the Republic When, in the Course of human events, it shall become absolutely necessary for the People to dissolve the political ties which have united them to a government that has betrayed its trust to obtain their…
  • Tracy Turner SMELE's (Slow-Motion-Extinction-Level-Events). Not yet common in academia, but it should be. I. Introduction: The Timebombs We Ignore "Not with a bang but a bureaucratic shrug, the world ends." - Revisionist reading of Eliot by the…
  • By David Swanson I wish U.S. academics would spend less time fantasizing choices between various murders with trollies, or playing games with theories about how greedy robots might do diplomacy, and more time on the impeachment problem. The United…
  • Cathy Smith Hidden Bombshells in Trump’s “Big Bodacious Pill” “The most dangerous place to be is between power and its reckoning.” —Rewritten maxim of Beltway survival In the dark guts of Trump’s 2025 legislative monolith—cheekily christened the Big…
  • Robert David A global exposé of how corporations distort science, erase truth, and turn human death into quarterly growth. I. Introduction: When Truth Becomes a Liability In an age when algorithms dictate belief and lobbyists author legislation, truth…
  • Robert David Polluters don’t just dump toxins. They dump stories—engineered by billion-dollar PR firms. They Poisoned the Planet—Then Hired Spin Doctors to Make You Forget When a chemical spill poisons a town, when a pipeline ruptures in a fireball,…
  • By David Swanson, World BEYOND War Switzerland got that way through NEUTRALITY Remarks at Neutrality Colloquium: A Call to Action for Active Neutrality & World Peace, June 26-27, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland. I grew up in a town in the United States that…
July 2025
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << <   > >>
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

  XML Feeds

Open-source blog
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor
ozlu Sozler GereksizGercek Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi E-okul Veli Firma Rehberi