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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 3, 2005 Case In Point: Same-Sex Marriage An appeal to fair play By Chris Honoré Tidings Correspondent To see a photograph from the South of some 50 years ago, and spot a sign over two porcelain drinking fountains, standing side by side, one saying “colored,” the other “white,” is now viewed with incredulity. How could such a thing ever have existed in America? When a black woman got on a city bus, after the end of a long day, she paid her fare like everyone else and then had to walk to the back of the bus, where the “colored” sat. There was a time when people of color in the South, and in so many other places in America, were denied full and equal rights under the law. A time when “separate but equal” was just one of many insidious examples of racism, a racism so commonplace that little thought was given to its impact in terms of lives severely truncated, many damaged beyond repair. To deny gay people in our state equal protection and equal rights under the law is the equivalent of placing two signs over a public facility, one that says “heterosexuals” and one that says “homosexuals.” When the people of Oregon passed Constitutional Amendment 36, saying that “only marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as marriage,” they did grievous harm to a significant portion of our citizenry. Let’s be clear: Equal protection for gays is as much a civil rights issue as is being denied the right to sit at the counter of a cafe, or being required to attend a “colored” elementary school that has no textbooks and too few desks, and leaks when it rains. For the voters to have passed such an amendment is egregiously wrong and disheartening. And it is puzzling. As jarring to any sense of decency and fair play as putting a black man in jail for speaking to a white woman. So, why? Why would the voters of Oregon deny gays the right to marry? Why would they deny gays all the rights and obligations (and there are some 1,000 listed) that are appended to being legally married? Such as the right to make health decisions for a partner, visit that partner in the hospital, the right of automatic retirement benefits of a partner, and the right of automatic paternity for children. On what basis? Clearly not because of skin color; but then that has always been a stunningly superficial and insidious distinction. As superficial as one’s sexual orientation. What, then, is the threat? What damage will occur to our society if gays marry? Will the institutions of marriage and family, as we traditionally think of them, be undermined? There was a time when the marriage between a black person and a white person was viewed in exactly the same way: a threat to what we know and accept. Races don’t mix. Gays should never marry. The Defense of Marriage Coalition, the organization that put the initiative on the ballot last year, stated that 36 was not about gays, but “about the definition of marriage, the importance to us all of holding a standard that is best for society, best for children.” The Coalition argued that legalizing same-sex marriage would undermine marriage and hurt children; public schools would be forced to teach that gay marriage is equal to traditional marriage; children would be denied a traditional family; and family relationships would become transient, children raised with a revolving door. Of course, such statements have no basis in fact. They rely on the most blatant stereotyping and prejudice. We know that one out of two heterosexual marriages fail. We know that generations of “traditional” families have been broken, with children raised in two households. How could gay marriages do any worse? It’s not the sexual orientation of the partners that is at issue but marriage as a viable institution that bears scrutinizing. If the coalition would defend marriage, it should begin by trying to understand why 50 percent of all those who vow “until death do us part,” part long before that. So what is it? Is it sex? Is that the wall that Oregonians hit when contemplating same-sex marriage? Is sex the nexus of these deeply embedded prejudices made manifest in a constitutional amendment? Certainly sex played a role in black men being beaten, jailed, and killed for being found with a white woman. As gay men and women have been verbally abused and assaulted for wanting only to be together. Within the last several weeks, the constitutionality of Amendment 36 has been challenged. Much as Plessy v. Ferguson (”separate but equal”) was challenged in the courts and finally struck down. It is hoped that a grievous wrong will be put right by our judiciary and that soon, in Oregon, marriage will be an option to all people, regardless of sexual orientation. Marriage between two people is not about skin color or about sexual orientation. It is about commitment, love and sharing. It will always be one of the most personal and important choices that anyone ever makes in life. How can we, the people of Oregon, in good conscience, deny those we now so wrongly designate as “different” the opportunity of stand under the same umbrella of equality afforded the rest of us? It is shameful and the passage of 36 was not our finest hour. Letters to the Editor and Guest Forums should be e-mailed in text-only format to [email protected]. Please include your address and a daytime phone number where you can be reached for confirmation. Submissions cannot have run in any other publication. 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