THE DARK FACE OF MARRIAGE EQUALITY LAWS

I may be one of the few queers in America who was happily shocked and delighted when the news came down late Wednesday afternoon that the New Hampshire House had rejected the revised marriage equality bill. 

Everyone had anticipated that with the Governor's "harmless" amendment, New Hampshire would last night have become the sixth state to legislate marriage equality. 

Fortunately not and not so fast.  Yes, I said fortunately.

After the original bill passed both houses of the New Hampshire legislature, the Democratic governor insisted that he would only sign the bill into law if it was amended to "protect" religious bigotry freedom.

Gay advocacy groups and their leaders blindly and stupidly jumped for joy and rushed to support the amendment which was swiftly approved by the Senate but then stopped dead in its tracks by the House. 

Thank common sense!

As always, our gay leaders operated with half brains and fewer wits.  Ironically, a gay Republican led the charge that saved the day and sent this dark evil back to Hell.

I see no joy in giving a few thousand gay couples the right to marry in exchange for tightening the stranglehold religion has on the United States Constitution and democracy.

How easily we sell our souls and our freedom for a few shiny baubles--or in this case a wedding registry at Bloomingdale's.

New Hampshire's amended marriage equality law would have further enshrined, institutionalized and legitimized discrimination and this nation's all too swift ride from democracy to theocracy--AND A NEW QUEER APARTHEID.

A very long time ago, this nation fervently believed that religion was subservient to democracy.  And an even longer time ago, Western Civilization matured enough to recognize that religious fundamentalism was incompatible with human rights and the dignity of man.

Secular law put a stop to human and animal sacrifice.  Parents who deny their children modern medical care in the name of religion are pursued by the authorities as criminals.  Keeping women and girls as property by religions advocating polygamy was long ago stopped.  And even though the Bible tells us to do so we no longer stone adulterers and scarlett women like Bristol Palin to death--at least not in this country.

So the argument that banning discrimination and mandating equality for all Americans is a violation of religious freedom is nothing but a throwback to some very dark and barbaric time.  And while President Obama and many Democrats see queers as subhuman, I do not.  And, I do not so easily celebrate the rise of legalized theocracy at the expense of a not-respected minority.

New Hampshire's Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted down the amended bill in a 188-186 vote, hours after its Senate approved the legislation 14-10 along party lines. An earlier version of the bill passed the lower chamber on March 26.

The legislature had been asked to approve language that would give legal protections, including the right to decline to marry same-sex couples, to clergy and others affiliated with religious organizations.  That wording was added by Governor John Lynch, a Democrat who promised to sign the bill if those changes were made.

The House vote against the governor's amendment means the bill will be sent to a committee that will try to resolve the differences between the two chambers. It remains unclear how the governor would respond to any changes to his wording. Lynch has said he would veto gay marriage if his wording is not adopted.

State Representative Steve Vaillancourt, a gay Republican from Manchester, was a leading voice against the amendment securing religious liberties, saying that the House should not be "bullied" by the governor. Vaillancourt said an earlier bill that did not provide protections to clerics or religious groups was the one that should have been passed, adding that the amended bill would allow discrimination to be written into state law.

Churches and other religious organizations, including charities and schools, have typically been exempt from state and local laws around the nation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation,  but it remains unclear how these religious institutions might be affected by new laws that require equal treatment for same-sex marriages.

The media reports this issue as if religion-driven discrimination and bigotry is a morally and ethically acceptable course.

"Feh!" As my grandmother would say.

Concerned that religion-excused bigotry might be challenged by the New Hampshire marriage equality law, the governor demanded provisions giving religious organizations the right not to recognize such marriages.

Of course, most gay leaders, the simple-minded buffoons that they are, probably imagined that this would mean that anti-gay churches would be free to deny weddings to queers who would not go there anyway.

I am becoming more and more incapable of suffering gay fools.

In fact, these provisions extend deep into our society and our lives exempting private individuals and businesses that, for religious reasons, do not want to provide wedding-related or other services to same-sex couples.

And "other services" is very loose language that could easily come to mean education, health care, housing, home repairs, car services, adoption agencies, employment, the general provision of goods and services--the list would go on and on and on.

The Vermont law, enacted in early April 2009, includes three specific provisions relating to freedom of religion. The law recognizes that clergy have the right not to preside over same-sex marriages; that religious organizations have the right to refuse the use of their facilities to celebrate same-sex marriages; and that fraternal benefit societies, such as the Knights of Columbus, have the right to refuse to provide insurance benefits to the same-sex partners of their members if the organization has religious scruples against doing so.

The Connecticut law, also enacted in April 2009, not only includes the same enshrined bigotry as Vermont but also further insulates religious organizations from liability.

Under the Connecticut statute, religious organizations may not only refuse to allow their facilities to be used to celebrate gay marriages but may also refuse to provide goods or services, such as special housing, to same-sex couples. In addition, the Connecticut law allows religious organizations that provide adoption services to deny those services to same-sex couples as long as the religious organization's adoption services are not supported by state or federal funds.

The Maine law, enacted in May 2009, contains two provisions related to so-called freedom of religion.   One might call it "freedom to discriminate".

First, the statute says that anyone "authorized to join persons in marriage" has the right to refuse to perform any marriage ceremony. Second, the Maine law also says that the state's new definition of civil marriage does not authorize the government to "compel, prevent, or interfere" with a religious community's policies about marriage. The precise meaning of this provision is unclear, but this law could offer significant protections for religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage.

Proposed legislation in New York contains a narrower protection for  so-called religious liberty. While this proposed law exempts those who are authorized to perform marriage ceremonies and who object to gay marriage from being required to solemnize such marriages, it does not address any other implications for religious organizations.

Thank you, New York. So far. 

The bottom line is that between these State-imposed "religious" exemptions and Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act (which Obama and the Democrats promised to swiftly repeal but have all but forgotten) marriage equality is not even remotely marriage equality.  Under DOMA, federal law prevents so-called legally married same sex couples from hundreds of protections enjoyed by opposite-sex couples--such as the filing of joint tax returns, eligibility for survivors' benefits under Social Security and disability benefits for children and a spouse.

New England's gay marriage bonanza is a return to Jim Crow laws, a spectacular rebirth of legalized segregation--and those who are segregated are kept as second class citizens by hundreds of regulations and exemptions.

As gay rights advocates celebrate the passage of marriage equality laws throughout New England, I see the dawning of a new age of legalized and mandated Apartheid.

The speed bump that New Hampshire hit last night thanks to a gay Republican should cause all of us to reflect on the Hell we are building in the name of gay rights compromises.  At the urging of gay rights advocacy groups, we are building a house of compromises that will place an almost impenetrable wall between gay Americans and equality for at least another generation and possibly two.

One day we may look back at the New England episode in the same way we look back at Jim Crow, Segregation, Don't Ask Don't Tell and even Apartheid.

Comments

[Sterling]

Fuck this, j'irai passer à la France et y vivre.

[DCS]

I could not agree more with your comments. I miss the days when the gays had leaders like Larry Kramer. A compromise on civil rights is acquiescing to discrimination. There is no degrees of discriminating there either is discrimination or there is not.