My gay marriage heroes
CommentsBecause of my opposition to same-sex marriage, some people perceive I don’t have any respect for marriage-equality activists. That’s just not true. A small minority of the leadership of the movement for same-sex marriage (maybe 5 percent?) really “gets it” and advocates for more freedom and fairness for everyone, rather than trying to force all Americans to espouse GayThink and to shove gay marriage down the throats of an unwilling nation. I believe that if two people with such attitudes got in a room with Maggie Gallagher and me (or another pair of reasonable defenders of man-woman marriage), we could hammer out a compromise that everyone could live with.
I’ll focus on just three examples, but I know of others.
• Lynne Bowman, the executive director of Equality Ohio, a statewide LGBT political group. Lynne has acknowledged to me that traditionally religious people do have legitimate concerns about their rights to continue using their religious beliefs regarding marriage in states that adopt the kind of marriage laws she favors. She sounded enthusiastic about the idea “that folks just get in a gosh darn room and find a way to hammer the thing out so that everyone wins as much as possible.” Compare that to Steven Goldstein, the Lynne Bowman of New Jersey, who said his movement “will settle for nothing less than 100 percent marriage equality.”
Lynne wrote me: “We believe that equality – whether in employment or relationships or other areas – is not a zero-sum game. One person does not have to be denied something in order for someone else to receive something. We believe that everyone has the right to their personal opinion. Our challenge as a society – and therefore as an organization and as a state – is to figure out how our laws can be crafted to make that possible.”
Her organization’s slogan is “we envision an Ohio where everyone feels at home” and they actually mean everyone, not just gay people.
• Christoper Sanders is the president of the Tennessee Equality Project, a statewide gay and lesbian political organization. Christopher identifies as a traditionally religious gay person (yes, there are others besides me) and he told me that many of the gay activists he works with in his state do too:
“Because many of our members grow up in and remain involved in churches and synagogues, I think the conversation is less threatening for us…. I met with a volunteer in Clarksville last month who without my asking simply stated that the top three influences in his life are God, his family, and his political party. While his forwardness of expression might be unusual, I don’t think that the cluster that he identified is unusual among the activists in our state.”
When I asked activists in places like California and Michigan if a business owner, a teacher, or a journalist should be allowed to use their own values about marriage in doing their jobs in a marriage equality state, most refused to answer and those who did generally said absolutely not. Christopher’s reaction can be summarized in one word: persuasion. He suggested the best way to deal with a business owner with policies that don’t treat same-sex marriages equally is to try to change the businessman’s mind. If a newspaper was not treating same-sex marriages as marriages, his group’s “preference would be to work with journalists’ guilds and put pressure on the paper in that way.”
In Yiddish, we have a term for someone like Christopher. It’s called “mensch.”
• Marianne Puechl is the co-founder of the Rainbow Wedding Network. She echoed Christopher’s modesty and practicality, without a hint of anger or vindictiveness. She told me that “suing, based on these circumstances, is not going to be the most productive measure.” She suggested that someone who doesn’t like the marriage policies of a traditionally religious business owner could blog about the company, write letters to the editor, publicize it at the local LGBT community center, and let the shopowner know that his discriminatory policy is losing him business.
I feel a little bad about quoting these outstanding activists, because inevitably the stormtroopers at the BoxTurtleBulletin and people like that will now put pressure on them to join the “Endorse Our Opinion or Else” crowd. But I think it’s really important that everyone understands that there is a way to advocate gay marriage that will gain the respect and admiration even of people like me. In the long run, I think, that’s a much smarter, fairer, and more ethical way to pursue social change.
David,
common tactic to find others for support when you are being so mean to others. . .
again, you continue your rants, and as you admittedat your blog made a lesbian cry and she (a friend) won’t talk to you. . .you continue to cross the line of civility, being mean, dismissive and demeaning. Your ‘GaysDefendMarriage’ should not be relfective of a Plural group. If you wanted to enter in productive discourse to look at cooperative, collective work supporting GLBT folk, you should have started off without your divisive, arrogant tone.
Based on the writings of others you shift away from any true criticism.
Blessed are the peace makers. . .for such a devout Jew, again you are not making friends, playing nice, and your disrepectful attitude is truly awful.
you make think you are winning on the playground, but it won’t be long before you are just playing by yourself.
Heroes are important. Education is key. Marriage is a basic civil right that should be attainable by all Americans if they choose. For those who are uncomfortable with gay marriage check out our short produced to educate & defuse the controversy. It has a way of opening closed minds & provides some sanity on the issue: http://www.OUTTAKEonline.com
The hard truth about this issue is that you can sit as many gay activists (reasonable or otherwise) down with as many traditional marriage activists (reasonable or otherwise) as many times as you want and I’m certain you will not reach a compromise. There is no compromise here.
Marriage is binary–you either are or you aren’t married. You either let same-sex couples marry or you don’t. Compromises like civil unions and domestic partnership don’t cut it, especially when marriage is available in some places. Despite all of your protestations to the contrary, there is tangible harm associated with denying same-sex couples the actual term “marriage” (see the CA decision).
Equality is also binary–either you are equal or you are not. You cannot get around the fact that the vast majority of gay people frame this issue in these terms. And I’m quite certain that no amount of meetings will alter that framework. This is a winner-take-all choice. There are reasonable people on both sides of this issue. But some of those reasonable people will not get their way, no matter how reasonable they try to be.
Christopher was not stating that the best way to go about accomplishing equality in California was persuasion. He was stating that the best way to accomplish some measure of equal treatment from businesses in Tennessee - where there are no non-discrimination laws - is persuasion.
Because there are no legal gay marriages in Tennessee, Chistopher would put pressure on newspapers through guilds.
But Gee, you’d never know that from reading the posting above.
I wonder if David Benkof ever feels remorse for mischaracterizing others’ views in order to make it seem that they agree with him. I wonder if it bothers him that he has to do so.
Rusty-
I didn’t make a friend cry. I made a lesbian I don’t know cry several years ago. A lesbian I do know said she’s no longer my friend last week. Believe it or not, I know more than one lesbian.
Timothy-
I did not mention Timothy’s position on California because I do not know it. It is possible he does not know it. If you have evidence Timothy approves of suing newspapers for refusing to recognize same-sex marriages as equal, I will be shocked, but I will make that clear on my blog.
Dan writes: “Despite all of your protestations to the contrary, there is tangible harm associated with denying same-sex couples the actual term “marriage” (see the CA decision).”
I’ve read In Re Marriage Cases twice, and all the harm they mention appears symbolic to me, rather than tangible. If you can show me substantial, serious, tangible harms from using the term “domestic partnership” instead of “marriage” I will stop my “protestations to the contrary.” The best way to change my mind is with evidence.
The SSM campaign has a strategy that works, at least superficially. It is called inducement of issue fatigue.
Meanwhile the very few bright and reasonable people don’t have the influence that they would need to put forth their argument above the noise. By merely appearing to be respectful of marriage defenders, such people draw the scorn of the drum bangers.
The dispute is not really about marriage, anyway, but rather it is about the innoculation of the gay kind of identity politics.
Being accused of betraying one’s identity group can be far more persuasive than reasoned arguments. This is not something brand new and it is not something invented by the SSM campaign. But the din tends to drown out the voices of reason.