In another sad day for equality and basic human rights, New York's highest court yesterday
ruled that gay marriage is illegal in that state. Also yesterday, Georgia reinstated a gay-marriage ban. Now among the more than forty states that have specific laws restricting marriage to only a man and a woman, New York and Georgia are only further evidence of the backsliding of equality and basic rights in this country that has been accelerating since 2001. While New York's ruling didn't instate any new laws, it was only an official interpretation of the language of that state's constitution, the effect is similar. Now the debate will be carried to the state's lawmakers, where little hope resides for a new bill that actually equalizes marriage rights for all people.
Highlighted by the language of the majority's ruling, however, is the only marginally defensible facade for those opposed to real equality in marriage. While the idea of gay marriage seems to make most people uncomfortable, those who actively oppose it tend to enshroud their true motivations in the insubstantial fabric of nobility and morality in the face of an overwhelming onslaught against their way of life. Face it, stemming from the same roots as xenophobia, racism, misoneism, and miscegenation laws, the deep-seated reasons most people oppose gay marriage are fear and ignorance - a powerful combination that helped our anscestors stay alive and propogate the species through so many dangerous milennia. But we don't have those types of dangers anymore, and until a completely unknown alien species lands on our planet, that type of animalistic instinct to immediately mistrust that with which we're unfamiliar only serves to stagnate the progress of the human race. For the lazy religious argument - god says it's a sin, so I don't have to make up my own mind - it's also a sin to let your god-given intelligence and rationality to be overwhelmed by the animalistic side of human nature. Our ability to control animalistic impulses or instincts like lust, violence, hatred and fear, is what keeps us from sinning - or in my definition, what actually separates us from animals. And while there are plenty of people who are convinced that gay marriage is actually a threat, and have used their faculties to come to and defend this position, I'm convinced that it's all still born of the instinctual fear of change. I know how easy it is to convince myself of something I want to believe, and how hard it is to accept that I'm wrong. It's even harder still to re-evaluate long-held beliefs that we want to uphold, but it's also extremely important to be able to do so. If it's not difficult, it's probably not worth doing.
While I understand and sympathize with those who've convinced themselves that forbidding gay marriage is truly in the best interest of our society - they're completely wrong, but I know how hard it is to re-evaluate arguments that prevent an uncomfortable self-realization - I find it absolutely hilarious when people call the movement for gay marriage rights an attack or onslaught against their way of life. Dear god, arm yourselves! Here come the gays to kill your children and redecorate your livingroom! Protecting family values sounds so noble, so irrefutably right, that basically all you need to do is spout that line in a debate, and all your problems are solved. You don't hate families, do you? (You probably hate America, too!) But really, how much of an effect will legalizing gay marriage have on the average Joe Republican with his W bumper sticker still adorning the back of his Ford? Does Joe even know a gay couple? Has he ever had the nerve to have a real conversation with someone with a different sexual orientation? Like the magic eight-ball, my sources say no. So how the hell is a minority element of the population (2-10% in most estimates) going to wage war on the values and beliefs of the other 90+% of the American public? Not good odds, if you really want to start something. On top of that, all this assumes that the values of the average modern American family are something worth protecting. Let's take a brief look at some numbers.
Nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce. While that's arguable based on statistical nuance, a conservative number is
41%. The latest US provisional estimate from the National Center for Health Statistics has the per capita divorce rate at
0.38%. Since divorces have to involve 2 people, the reality is that 76 of every 1000 people in 2003 got divorced. That's everyone - not just those who were married. That's not including California, Colorado, Indiana, or Louisana.
According to the
US Census Bureau, 23.2% of women who gave birth in 2000-2003 were below the poverty level. The rates of married women versus single women was 12.2% versus 50%. That means that nearly one in four children in America starts life at or below the poverty level. Additionally, 29% of the women who gave birth in 2000-2003 were unmarried.
In 2004,
11.9 of every 1000 children were reported and documented victims of abuse or neglect according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Also that year, 1,490 children died from abuse or neglect.
These types of family values seem to be the types of things we should be waging war against - not protecting. While an estimated 1 in 10 people are gay, nearly 1 in 4 children are born into poverty. For anyone who can count, that's obviously a much higher percent (especially if you take into account that children - 0-18 years - make up a much smaller percentage of the population than those who are aware of their sexual orientation, lets say 18-76 years.) If anyone actually believes that gay marriage is more threatening to America's children and strong family values, I wonder if they can count.
So in reality, are people really that worried about gay marriage eroding family values and changing their way of life? Maybe, but they wouldn't be if they stopped to think about it. More likely, gay marriage opponents simply haven't taken the time to really evaluate the reasons they don't support true equality, and instead hide behind the arguments set up for them by a small and vocal minority of self-deceiving thinkers. It's so much easier to spout unoriginal rhetoric than to come up with your own ideas. It's much more comfortable. After all, change isn't always comfortable, and it almost always leads to the unknown. We've evolved to fear and fight the unknown, but now it's keeping us from evolving further. Equlality is only a theory until it's truly put into practice.
Two news-items I just couldn't pass up this morning:
