A fascinating proposal
CommentsMost “marriage equality” activists have no interest in any sort of compromise, or in finding way to accommodate the legitimate concerns of male-female marriage defenders. That’s because they openly state that we have no legitimate concerns.
But since starting to blog on this issue in early May, I have run across a small minority on the other side that has strong marriage-equality goals but that respects and wants to be fair to the other side. One of the most impressive of those activists is Michael Taylor-Judd, the president of Washington state’s Legal Marriage Alliance. Michael and I disagree on most points of contention on this debate, but we have exchanged several long, heated, yet nonetheless respectful E-mails about same-sex marriage.
Still, I was floored when he wrote me recently with a proposal which, while problematic, directly solves one of the serious problems I have with “marriage equality.”
He wrote me:
Putting more power back in the hands of private business owners is a conservative proposition I would support, but it would cut across everything. Owners don’t get to just choose to recognize only marriages of opposite-sex couples. Changing the existing laws, would also have to mean owners could discriminate on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, and religious belief. If someone gets to treat same-sex couples differently, then I get to treat Orthodox Jewish couples differently, for example.
To understand Michael’s proposal, try thinking about discrimination laws like we think of free speech. I would be a happier person if I lived in a country in which Holocaust denial was illegal, lesbian couples could not be legally described as “married,” and people could go to jail for referring to ferrets as “rodents” (they’re mustilids). But if my language preferences become law, what things that I want to say will be banned and enforced by the language police? It is much better to live in a country where everyone can say pretty much whatever they want.
When the government says a business cannot discriminate against same-sex couples, Orthodox Jews, and women, but can discriminate as much as it wants against Republicans, short people, and transgender people (as is true in many places), it is taking a stand judging people’s personal opinions. You think lesbian marriages aren’t really marriages? You could lose your business. You think transgender women are really guys in dresses? No problem. Have a nice day!
Of course, I would be appalled if Michael’s idea meant a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, goes back to refusing to serve African-Americans. But that’s in a state where a once-racist Democratic Party just voted overwhelmingly for an African-American candidate for president. Somehow I think such a store would lose more business than it would gain.
I don’t want to see ice cream shops in Berkeley, California, refuse to sell smoothies to Republicans wearing John McCain buttons, nor do I want bed and breakfasts in Provincetown, Massachusetts to publish a policy that only same-sex couples may lodge there. But if I have to live with that so adoption agencies could choose the kinds of families they think are best for children and so fertility clinics can inseminate the kind of women they believe will make good mothers, I can live with it.
What do people think?
It is unfortunate that David likes to be… shall we say, selective… in how he quotes the various LGBT activists who are willing to dialogue with him. It’s rather similar to how quotes are picked for movie ads.
I’ll freely admit that David has me quoted above correctly for each word, comma, and period. However, I might object to the appearance from his statements that I wrote him as if “out of the blue” with some grand proposal to start discriminating against everyone.
Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that David and I have been attempting to engage in a regular dialogue by e-mail about our opposing viewpoints. One area of concern for David is that religious conservatives may be forced to treat gay and lesbian couples as married, although the very idea is perhaps ludicrous or even abhorrent to them.
My comments above are part of my much larger response to him that I would (personally) be okay with letting such folks discriminate against me and my husband if I similarly had the right to discriminate against (to pick a group) Orthodox Jews because perhaps I think their clothes are funny, or that they are misinterpreting my faith and I would simply prefer not to do business with them. As you can read above, I happen to think that if conservatives are proposing to keep gays and lesbians out of anti-discrimination laws and statutes, then they will have to be willing to do away with all such statutes in their entirety. After all, civil rights are civil rights — for EVERYONE.
He seems to have conveniently left out my other comments to him that I don’t think such a proposition would be very widely supported. I said I might just be happy to support such a conservative proposal if it was put forward… by opponents of marriage equality. It would provide ample evidence for one of the points marriage equality supporters like myself have been saying all along — namely, that opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples isn’t about viewing homosexuality as “immoral” or simply “icky”; it’s about discrimination, intolerance, and denial of civil rights. And absolutely no one should be in support of that, regardless of their age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, religious belief, or any other long-standing excuse for hating people.
Unfortunately, David is unable to see that many of the people he hangs out with on his side of the issue really aren’t very nice people…
Michael fails to mention that I invited him to write this blog post. When he didn’t reply I told him I’d do it myself. If I was trying to misrepresent him, why would I give him the option of writing up his proposal himself?
I’ve checked over my correspondence with Michael and have found no E-mail in which he says anything like “such a proposition would (not) be very widely supported.” It may have gone in the spam filter. I don’t understand how Michael can propose a measure, but say he’d only support it if my side brought it up first. He invented it himself. I don’t love it, but I could live with it. If it makes him feel better, OK, I’ll pretend to bring it up first. But what matters is the merits of the proposal, not who thought of it first.
As for Michael’s final comment, one of the extremely bigoted groups that is posing as an “ally” of mine has been given until the end of the business day Tuesday to remove my name from their Web site, or else I will expose them in detail. Hopefully, they’ll back down, but if they don’t, well, keep an eye on this blog Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.