California, we are so happy to have you join us. It's hardly a "from sea to shining sea" moment of marriage equality, but now California has joined Massachusetts in recognizing that equal marriage is fundamental to freedom and liberty. The threats to the marriage equality movement in California will continue, just as they have in Massachusetts. But oh, for this moment, our country feels like a "sweet land of liberty." All these patriotic refrains keep running through my head!
Be prepared to hear that "the end of civilization is coming." That's the least of the hateful rhetoric that will come your way. Take heart. We have heard it all in Massachusetts. Now four and a half years after the Goodridge lang=EN> decision granting us marriage equality, we are still standing.
While we are one-sixth the size of your population, our roots are in feistiness, rebellion, and a commitment to liberty and justice for all. Our combined populations approach 43 million – 15 percent of the U.S. population. For how long will it seem fair to the other 239 million to withhold this civil right? You can look to our path-breaking ways and we gladly welcome your guidance. We are so happy to have you as allies.
On May 17, 2008, we marked four years of marriage equality. All of the dire predictions of "the sky is falling" ilk have proved to be nothing more than the rhetorical rantings of religious conservatives on a fear-mongering mission.
Flashback to 2004, Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution in California, a conservative think tank, claimed in a Weekly Standard article, "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" ( http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp lang=EN>), that he had the statistics to show that the demise of heterosexual marriage was well under way in Scandinavia. The reason: the granting of "marriage-like" (read, "separate but equal") gay relationship rights beginning with Denmark in 1989, Norway in 1993, Sweden in 1994, and Iceland in 1996. He predicted, "By the time we see the effects of gay marriage in America, it will be too late to do anything about it."
Similarly, James Dobson of Focus on the Family declared that Massachusetts was issuing "death certificates for the institution of marriage."
Flash forward to 2008, Kurtz's skewed interpretation of statistics has been soundly refuted by M.V. Lee Badgett of UCLA. In "Will Providing Marriage Rights to Same-Sex Couples Undermine Heterosexual Marriage? The Evidence from Scandinavia and the Netherlands" (2004) (http://www.iglss.org/media/files/briefing.pdf lang=EN>), Badgett examined Kurtz's Scandinavian "data." She showed that "divorce rates have not risen since the passage of partnership laws, and marriage rates have remained stable or actually increased." (Badgett also wrote a compelling brief in support of California's marriage case.) But reason and facts never stop a religious conservative like Kurtz from repeating inaccuracies that help mobilize anti-marriage equality sentiment. In a 2006 article in National Review online, "Zombie Killers: AKA 'Queering' the Social," ( http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTU4NDEzNTY5ODNmOWU4M2Y1MGIwMTcyODdjZGQxOTk lang=EN>=) he cops to his strategy. "Gay marriage undermines marriage ... okay, I admit it. I'm a cranky, stick-in-the-mud conservative who keeps making the same tired old point." And an incorrect point, I might add.
Dobson's dire warnings about gay marriage persist ( lang=EN>http://www.focusonthefamily.com/). A key component of Focus on the Family's financial and psychological empire is attacking LGBT people and our marriages in particular. Daniel Karslake's brilliant 2007 film, For the Bible tells Me So ( lang=EN>http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/ lang=EN>), lang=EN lang=EN>lays bare the hypocrisy of Dobson and his cohort of religious conservatives. As they rake in millions of dollars each year, they cite a couple of biblical passages that they claim demonstrate that homosexuality is immoral. Meanwhile they ignore repeated biblical passages admonishing all of us to give our money to the poor. Mega-millionaire preachers do not do the work of Jesus.
Over 10,000 same-sex marriages in Massachusetts challenge the dire predictions of religious conservatives. We have had a "reality" show running here for four years. Our marriages are succeeding. Even though we do not have the federal benefits that are critical for all families, Massachusetts's LGBT families in 2008 are more secure socially, psychologically, and financially. Our state still has the lowest divorce rate in the country and heterosexual marriage statistics have not plummeted.
Yet with the ink barely dry on the California decision, the exact old arguments that we heard between 2003 and 2007 in Massachusetts kicked in for Californians. On CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council trotted out Kurtz's Scandinavian statistics and the old tired and disproved point that kids raised by a single parent or same-sex parents will not thrive. Fortunately, gay dad and popular sex columnist Dan Savage was there to counter Perkins's pseudo-research and outright lies. Countering these specious arguments by telling the real stories of LGBT families will be essential to defeating a constitutional amendment on California's ballot in November.
According to the Boston Globe, San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, wants to "draw upon the expertise ... of gay rights activists in Massachusetts." We're ready to help. Through telling our stories, we defeated a similar attempt by religious conservatives to write discrimination into our constitution. The same-sex couples who have married here to show their love and commitment, to have their relationship recognized, and to protect their families are no different from folks in California. Couples like Lisa Berg and Rosanne Schembri of Valencia, California.
On May 15 when I spoke with Berg, she had just gotten off the phone after asking Schembri, "Will you marry me?" Schembri's reply was, "Again?" You see, they have been together for 29 years and have been trying to protect their relationship in any way they could. In 1979 they had a holy union in Los Angeles. In 2001 they had a civil union in Vermont. In 2005, they had a domestic partnership in California. In 2006, they married in Toronto. Now they will marry in California. Again. This time it's for real. And rest assured, the sky will not fall.
Patricia A. Gozemba co-authored with Karen Kahn and photographer Marilyn Humphries Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex Marriages (Beacon Press, 2007) www.courtingequality.com lang=EN . Gozemba, who toured with Courting Equality in California last fall, is ready to spread the Massachusetts success story. Contact: [email protected].