GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

I’ve been thinking about the group-but-not-individual exemption in Connecticut’s and Vermont’s gay-marriage bills. How would that apply, for example, to a Christian rock band? They’re certainly a “religious organization,” right? Does that mean that a Christian rock solo artist could be forced to work at a same-sex wedding, but if she threatens to bring a drummer, she’s exempt?

What’s the deal with that?

More evidence that the gay-marriage debate is not entirely black and white. Ari, one-half of a matched set of “hitched” female “queer vegan artists and activists,” liked my piece in the New York Daily News:

I wrote what appears to be the first piece anywhere highlighting the Vermont Clause I blogged about earlier in the New York Daily News (online) today. An excerpt:

…the Vermont Clause certainly could go farther. I would like to see protections for individuals - not just organizations. Still, it’s a vast improvement over the other states that have implemented gay marriage without concern for its repercussions on the traditionally religious.

Without serious religious freedom guarantees, disturbing punishments have been meted out to people and groups who have acted consistent with their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman and that children are best served with both a mother and a father….

Being forced to perform a medical procedure or take photographs when you don’t want to smacks of involuntary servitude. Why do organizations like “Freedom to Marry” feel that gay freedom has to be won on the backs of other people’s lack of freedom to work or not work based on their beliefs?

If some states are going to have gay marriage, people like me need to be protected if we choose to continue to behave as if the definition of marriage that we think comes from God is correct, rather than that of the gay and lesbian community - and the government.

It’s not a coincidence that the first real protections for religious organizations in a gay marriage state came in the first place to implement same-sex marriage by legislative action rather than judicial fiat. The legislative process usually involves compromise, and the need to get a majority often leads to amendments that incorporate each side’s concerns.

The courts in Massachusetts, California, Connecticut and Iowa, however, have implemented same-sex marriage unilaterally, with dissenting voices relegated to, well, the dissents. It’s much healthier for our democracy to deal with its most heated issues in the legislative arena rather than in the courts.

Ideally, we would have federal legislation guaranteeing individual conscience rights when it comes to marriage. Barring that, conservative lawmakers ought to push for strong “Vermont clauses” in all future gay marriage legislation.

With all the Green Mountain State’s double-bride and double-groom celebrations, nobody has seemed to notice that the Vermont gay-marriage law contains a clause offering some of the same protections I’ve been calling for here at GaysDefendMarriage.com:

§ 4502. PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS

* * *

(l) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a religious organization,

association, or society, or any nonprofit institution or organization operated,

supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious organization,

association, or society, shall not be required to provide services,

accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges to an individual if

the request for such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or

privileges is related to the solemnization of a marriage or celebration of a

marriage. Any refusal to provide services, accommodations, advantages,

facilities, goods, or privileges in accordance with this subsection shall not

create any civil claim or cause of action. This subsection shall not be

construed to limit a religious organization, association, or society, or any

nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised, or controlled by or

in conjunction with a religious organization from selectively providing

services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges to some

individuals with respect to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage but

not to others.

I have a column in today’s Jerusalem Post which suggests some ways Jewish dating Web sites can retaliate if subject to eHarmony-style lawsuits. I write:

I DON’T SEE any reason why - with the eHarmony precedent - the Orthodox Jewish dating and marriage sites cannot be sued in New Jersey and forced to shut down, pay massive damages or create a similar gay Jewish service. All three options are of course anathema to the owners of these Web sites and, I hope, to the Jewish community. Even pro-gay Jews should realize that court cases forcing Jewish business owners to violate their consciences are not “good for the Jews.” So what should the Jewish sites do if sued? I’d like to suggest that they go ahead and form Jewish gay dating Web sites, but then use their freedom of speech to make clear what Torah Judaism thinks of gay dating.

First of all, the names of the sites can reflect Jewish attitudes toward the whole situation. Two possibilities are SawYouAtSodom.com and OnlyToevas (abominations) .com.

Second, there can be banner ads sprinkled heavily throughout the sites quoting Jewish sources - not all of which are necessarily Jewish law today - condemning same-sex relations. These can include biblical verses: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13). Rabbinic texts can also appear: “It is forbidden for women to enmesh [play around] with one another… It is appropriate to subject such women to disciplinary lashes since they committed a prohibited act” (Shulhan Aruch, Even Haezer 20:2). Finally, the site can include quotes from great rabbis showing Judaism’s aversion to gay relations: “Evildoers… lust for this repugnant indulgence, which is one of the greatest abominations. Even the nations of the world consider that homosexual conduct is unparalleled in its loathsomeness” (Rav Moshe Feinstein).

Third, there can be links to yeshivot, seminaries and Jewish outreach organizations like Chabad and Aish Hatorah, encouraging the Jewish gay and lesbian site users to return to a more traditional Jewish lifestyle. There could also be some links to responsible (read: not “ex-gay”) Orthodox literature specifically discussing homosexuality, like Rabbi Chaim Rapoport’s book Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View and my pamphlet, isjudaismhomophobic.com.

But I’ll go a step further and call for massive resistance if the gay movement continues to figure out ways to force traditionalist people to treat gay “marriages” as if they were real marriages. Because of freedom of speech, I don’t see how gays can stop:

• Wedding caterers from wearing T-shirts with Biblical verses (He who lieth down with man…) or even “I Hate Fags” (well, maybe not) on them while forced to cater gay “marriage” affairs.

• In vitro fertilization clinics from having posters on the wall emphasizing the importance of fathers in children’s lives while forced to inseminate lesbians who plan to raise their children without fathers.

• Teachers from driving to school with bumper stickers that read “Marriage = One Man, One Woman” if forced to read “King and King” and other gay propaganda to her students.

In fact, I would urge anyone forced by law to support gay “marriage” against their beliefs to find a way to use their First Amendment rights to express disagreement with and even distaste and disgust at the notion of gay “marriage” and/or homosexuality in general. If the left continues to assault traditional institutions, it’s the least we can do to let the world know we disagree.

I’ve expressed in the past my opposition to the “get the government out of marriage” so-called compromise to the SSM controversy. I have said that it’s not a compromise because one side gets nothing. But I’m starting to rethink that.

If the government gets out of the marriage business, and every person and organization gets to decide for themselves what marriage is or isn’t, maybe that’s a compromise that would accommodate my religious-freedom concerns. Why can’t, for example, a caterer only accommodate those weddings she believes are actually weddings? The government has no stance on what marriage is.

If the government has no stance on what marriage is, it seems to me that a lesbian teacher could teach that marriage can be between two women, and an Orthodox Jewish teacher can teach that marriage cannot. Curriculum on marriage and the family can be written by each school district with the guidance of the elected or appointed school board.

I’m not saying I’d support such a compromise. But I would acknowledge that it is, indeed, a compromise.

The anti-gay-marriage folks in Washington state are using the most unfortunate phrase I’ve written in 10 months of op-ed writing. In my second op-ed during that time, which appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I wrote:

Openly gay Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and a representative of the largest Michigan gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, have both told me that people who continue to act as if marriage is a union between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired and even jailed until they relent.

While Murray and the Triangle Foundation rep did say that people continuing to behave as if marriage is between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired, and even jailed, they did not say “until they relent.” Murray did refer to Martin Luther King and Gandhi, who were jailed until they relented, but that’s no excuse for the sloppy paraphrase. (Note: it’s not a misquote because I didn’t quote them. It’s a poor paraphrase.)

As soon as this was called to my attention I apologized.

Anyway, the phrase has now made it into a campaign commercial against a gay-marriage bill in Washington state.

I of course like being quoted, but not in this case.

Yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), his party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States, gave an outstanding speech here in St. Louis (I couldn’t go because of Shabbat) in which he embraced the role religion has played in his life and politics. I’m not planning on voting for him, but if he’s elected, I believe Obama will have the most nuanced, carefully considered view on faith and politics of any American president in history.

For example, in a speech interrupted by shouts of “Amen,” he said yesterday:

The values we believe in - empathy and justice and responsibility to ourselves and our neighbors - these cannot only be expressed in our churches and our synagogues, but in our policies and in our laws.

I am moved to hear the leading candidate for the nation’s highest office speak about his belief that we should try to express our church- and synagogue-based values in our nation’s laws in part because of the difficulty I’ve had with “marriage equality” supporters who have been nearly hysterical in their insistence that doing with Obama and I have been doing is unconstitutional, theocratic, and downright rude.

Some examples:

Popsiclestand at boxturtlebulletin.com wrote: “The one mistake I might have made was not realizing that your particular interpretation of Judaism calls for a theocratic government. Sorry about that, but I’m afraid you’re in the wrong country for that crap.”

SammySeattle at Joe.My.God wrote “Mr. Benkof once again cannot get past religion and see this as a civil matter. Separate is never equal. The government will not ‘redefine’ marriage in the Jewish religion, it will only enhance marriage in the civil forum. ”

Bruce Garrett, of boxturtlebulletin.com wrote “It’s about forcing people into one way of life versus letting them live their own lives. If you think same sex marriage is immoral, then don’t have one. If you think sex outside of wedlock is sinful then don’t do that. By all means, live your life according to your ‘traditional’ religious values. But you need to extend the same respect to your neighbors.”

RobertinCali at Joe.My.God wrote “Religious zealots who use the shield of ‘I’m one, so listen to me’ should be shouted down by the chorus of supporters. Benkof and his ilk are using old arguments to try and deny rights to us. They think that our right to marry is going to harm their marriages in innumerable ways…. Benkof needs to call his argument what it is, his religious belief, not the opinion of the ‘Community.’”

PiaSharn, of boxturtlebulletin.com wrote “I’m not a member of your religion. So I don’t understand why I should be forced to live my life according to your beliefs. Not all religions think that same-sex marriage is wrong. But you seem to be saying that everyone should be legally forced to conform to your religious beliefs.”

Now, please understand: I have never tried to impose my beliefs upon the nation as a dictator or a theocracy. All I have done is try to use my one vote and my freedom of speech and freedom of the press to promote policies that are motivated in part but not in whole by my deeply held religious beliefs.

If that approach is dangerous, it is a million times more dangerous when Obama does it than when I do. After all, he appears to be a few months away from the most powerful and most symbolic office in the land.

But where are the protests of popsiclestand and SammySeattle against Obama? It appears that promoting policies based on faith is OK when a Democrat does it, and offensive and unconstitutional when a Republican does it. In other words, they’re making absolutely no point at all.

I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing. My hunch is Obama will as well.

More than once in the last several weeks, on Web Sites such as Pam’s House Blend and GaysDefendMarriage.com, I’ve pointed out a double standard held by many of those advocating for same-sex marriage.

Basically, many “marriage equality” activists I’ve spoken to have said that public-school teachers who tell their students that marriage is the union of a man and a woman should be disciplined or even fired for teach contrary to “the facts”; and journalists who describe a couple as unmarried despite their having had a legal same-sex marriage should be subject to libel suits.

However, advocates of “marriage equality” have been completely free to do precisely the opposite for years without fear of punishment. For example, in 1999 the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network published and promoted a curriculum that encouraged public school teachers to instruct their students about marriage using a definition that makes no reference to gender. And I’ve seen dozens of examples in the gay press and even in mainstream publications such as People Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle in which a prominent gay or lesbian person’s partner who is not legally married to them anywhere in the world is nonetheless called their husband or wife. I am very confident that no gay-friendly teacher or journalist has ever been disciplined, fired, or sued for libel for using a definition of marriage that is consistent with his or her values but not with the legal reality.

So my question is this: why is it OK for gay advocates to use their own definition of marriage without punishment when it doesn’t match the government’s, yet traditionally religious people cannot use their own definition of marriage without punishment when their definition doesn’t match the government’s? Wouldn’t it be better to use a system where everyone is free to live their lives consistently with their beliefs? In the marriage debate, the only position that allows such a system to operate is the old system in which marriage is between a man and a woman.

And saying that it’s unconstitutional to collect damages from a newspaper for saying Del Martin is a bachelorette or to fire a teacher for saying marriage is between a man and a woman isn’t enough. We should all live in a country in which no one has to fear harassment and lawsuits for using their definition of marriage - even if they end up victorious. Where are the fair-minded advocates of “marriage equality” who want to amend gay marriage bills or state constitutions to make it clear that people can continue to run their businesses, perform their jobs, and raise their families using whatever definition of marriage they believe in?

Now, there are some pretty intelligent, completely reasonable proponents of same-sex marriage like Andrew Koppelman and Jonathan Rauch. What is their response to my challenge above? Or the smart, passionate proponents of “marriage equality” who comment at blogs like mine and all over the Web? Do any of them have a smart, clear, fair way to explain why their side gets a free pass to use its illegal definition of marriage but my side doesn’t? If not, do any of them have a lame way to explain it? Because so far, I haven’t even heard that.

Because 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.