More Prop 8 Trial Fallout in Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times continues to try to win a GLAAD media award with three opinion pieces. John Ibson, professor of American studies at Cal State Fullerton, writes about how things have changed since having a ceremony in Canada with Steve, his partner of 32 years. He pleaded for neutering state marriage licensing in this commentary in this commentary.

I want an opponent of same-sex marriage to look me straight in the eye and tell me why what Canada has made so easy, and what U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker has declared constitutionally sound, should be so difficult in the United States?

Words mean things. We have chosen to continue to value and set apart as marriage the only kind of voluntary association that unites both basic components of society and can naturally create new citizens, who do not consent to the situation, and provide those citizens with a parent and role model from both of the two sexes, united in a legal, social, and financial union.

How about you look a bride+groom set of parents who voted for Prop 8 in the eye and tell them that what you do with Steve is no different than what they did to create their children, and they don't have a right to vote on the conditions of licenses that are issued on their behalf?

How can any society that dares to call itself free dare as well to exclude same-sex couples from marriage's singular advantages - legal, cultural and (as I newly understand) psychological?

We reserve legal advantages for certain kinds of associations for the overall benefit of society. Culture is not dependent on a state license. Most, if not all, of the cultural and psychological benefits are marriage emanate from the joining of the two sexes.

[Much more after the jump.]

Why is what Steve and I did in Vancouver, and what we've felt ever since, a threat to anyone else's marriage?

If state marriage licensing is neutered, we will be devaluing marriage as a legal institution through removing the core factor and diluting the meaning. If a student who never takes your class is able to place on his transcripts that he got an "A" in your class, how would that hurt all of the other "A" grades?

By what conceivable logic do we now jeopardize, rather than strengthen, marriage as an institution?

The same way forcing a bunch of chess teams into Major League Baseball threatens professional baseball.

I've taught the power and necessity of ritual for my 38 years as a professor of American culture.

You can have ritual without a state license.

In considering what motivates condemnations of gay marriage, it's crucial to recognize that condemning some demonized "other" has a pernicious allure for those who are wrestling with personal demons. In the twisted logic of bigotry, denouncing the identity of someone else is sometimes an effort to deny that the denouncer shares that very identity.

As I understand his point, based on having heard him on the Dennis Prager Show, "sometimes" is a crucial part of this. One need not denounce anyone's identity of maintain that the state has an interest in maintaining a bride+groom requirement in marriage licensing.

The shame that Steve and I experienced as gay youngsters hasn't disappeared from the land, of course, and in a sad irony, those who feel the shame often try to expunge it in themselves by encouraging it in others.

This is pointless, because someone could just as easily and credibly argue that the author is trying to get other people to do what he does to assuage his feelings.

Sometimes it's less stark than that. The words "heterosexual" and "homosexual," and the erotic dichotomy they imply, weren't coined until a century ago.

Polarized sexual identity brought with it a powerful preference for heterosexuality.

So everybody was essentially androgynous and bisexual until a hundred years ago?

Many Americans, especially males, struggled mightily to "prove" their straightness, so fierce was the fear of being judged otherwise.

It is quite sad that friendship has been cast under suspicion.

The dreary, endless list of ways that our culture has devised to demonstrate "true" masculinity and femininity, and hence straightness, would be merely pathetic were it not the cause of so much misery.

Someone can be masculine or feminine without ever engaging in sex or having a partner. But they are complimentary aspects of humanity.

The drive for same-sex marriage is no threat; it's in truth a thoroughly conservative movement, one of the few authentic defenses that the institution of marriage has received in recent history.

I hope we never will find out if that is true or not, because I suspect we’ll find out that it is false. If we hadn't already devalued marriage so much, there would be no way that neutering marriage would have nearly as much support as it does. If we still had laws against adultery, alienation of affection, cohabitation, and so forth the way we used to, then I highly doubt that most marriage neutering advocates would want same-sex relationships to be placed in the same context as pairing the sexes. (And, by the way, if marriage is neutered nationwide, I will be holding my homosexual friends and associates to the same standards I hold heterosexuals - I will not be supporting shacking up, sex outside of marriage, out of wedlock births, or divorce without just cause.) If marriage is neutered across the land, then once it serves the purpose of quashing through government force all disagreement that homosexual behavior is the same as heterosexual behavior and that same-sex coupling is the same as bride+groom coupling, the attack on marriage as part of the overall assault on the family will continue. This is likely not what the author wants, but it is what is wanted by those who want people to rely more on government or the removal of any cultural norms for sexual behavior.

The paper also ran an editorial, "Homosexuality and the Law", in which they argue that homosexual people should be considered a minority group privileged to the court standard of 'strict scrutiny’, and thus a right to state marriage licenses without a bride or without a groom.

The standard applies to laws affecting minority groups that fall within "suspect classifications," but the courts have not been entirely clear about the criteria for receiving this special protection. They have said, among other things, that such groups must have been historically targeted by discrimination; must be a "discrete" and "insular" community; must be a minority because of an unchangeable characteristic; and must have lacked the power to protect themselves using the political process. Groups don't necessarily have to meet all four, and other factors could be considered. Among the classifications that have qualified for this protection are race and national origin. Could the same apply to sexual orientation?

Homosexual people are politically powerful in California. They serve as judges, for example, and overturn duly adopted constitutional amendments. And, they have major newspaper editorial boards constantly writing about their issues in a supportive way.

There is no doubt that gays and lesbians have historically been singled out for discrimination, to the point that until relatively recently, most were too afraid of the repercussions to reveal information about their sexuality. The vitriol hurled their way during the marriage debate only adds to the evidence.

What vitriol?

One of the more divisive arguments about homosexuality is whether it is a mere choice, or inborn. But the American Psychological Assn. states clearly that although the factors determining sexual orientation are complicated, it is not a choice and cannot be changed.

According to trial testimony, for a significant minority, it is a choice. And certainly, behaviors are choices.

The paper also ran an editorial urging the issuing of neutered marriage licenses during the appeal process.

Having ruled that Proposition 8 unreasonably and unconstitutionally deprived gay and lesbian couples of the right to marry, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker should take the natural next step of allowing such marriages to go forward while the case wends its way upward on appeal.

I don't seem to recall an editorial denouncing Newsom's original shenanigans in light of Prop 22 and DOMA, or calling for the authorities to take steps to make sure marriage licenses weren't mistakenly issued to a brideless or groomless couple after Prop 8 passed, or the California Supreme Court affirmed it as a valid amendment to the state constitution. I guess the paper's love for legal principles only goes so far?