by Leland Traiman, http://www.EqualityWithoutMarriage.org<br>
October 29, 2007

Lesbians and gay men have already lost the fight for same-sex marriage and it is time to move on to a fight we can win.

Same-sex marriage with all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage cannot exist in the United States in the near future.  Here is why:  Forty-five states have laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Source: Human Rights Campaign)  There has been over 48 million votes cast on this issue in 29 states and almost 32 million, almost two-thirds, voted against same-sex marriage.  As the noted gay historian and professor at the University of Illinois, John D'Emilio, observed in his 2006 article, The Marriage Fight Is Setting Us Back, “The campaign for same-sex marriage has been an unmitigated disaster.  It has created a vast body of new anti-gay laws.”  There has already been, in effect, a national referendum and we have lost……BIG.

Real Marriage Does Not Exist in Massachusetts

Despite the title, “marriage”, same-sex marriage with all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage does not even exist in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts's same-sex marriage, California's domestic partners, and Vermont and New Jersey's civil unions all have the same federal benefits of marriage: zero.

Anecdotal reports of inappropriate or anomalous implementation of California's two and one-half year old comprehensive domestic partner laws would not be solved by changing the title to marriage.  Lesbians and gay men in Massachusetts have reported problems with their state's implementation of same-sex marriage.  Like California, Massachusetts's legislature is having to plug some holes because both of these policies are new.  Any new and comprehensive policy, no matter how well written, will have bumps along the road to implementation. (The Gay & Lesbian Review 5/2007 page 6, Marriage Equality Not a Reality In Mass. by Dale Mitchell, Cofounder, LGBT Aging Project, Boston, MA)

The Myth About Same-Sex Marriage

There is a myth that marriage has more rights and benefits than civil unions/domestic partners.  That myth is born from the fact that civil unions/domestic partners have only been passed by states.  States have no power to grant the 1138 federal benefits of marriage.  However, a national civil union policy would.  Senators Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, & Biden have pledge to support a national civil union policy.

Separate but Equal Argument is Historically Incorrect

Same-sex marriage activists will say, “Separate is not equal.”  Analogy to Brown v. Board of Education (1954, US Supreme Court) is a common error which ignores the historical facts.  “Separate but equal” was invented by white supremacists in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896, US Supreme Court) to oppress African-Americans.  Domestic Partners was invented by a gay man, Tom Brougham, in 1982 and advanced by lesbian and gay organizations to obtain the benefits of marriage when most lesbians and gay men  viewed marriage as a discredited patriarchal institution.  Indeed, the acceptance of civil unions/domestic partners is more comparable to Brown than to Plessy.

Facing Reality: The Way Forward

A clear majority of voters support civil unions with all the same rights, benefits and obligations of marriage but oppose support same-sex marriage.  Illogical?  Yes!  But it is a fact we must live with.  (Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of 10/28/2007: 30% support same-sex marriage, 26% support civil unions, 38% oppose any legal recognition for same-sex couples.) 

There have been no successful direct challenges to statewide domestic partner or civil union policies.  Domestic partners and civil unions have been overturned only when they were included in ballot propositions whose primary purpose was to ban same-sex marriage.

All of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage are attainable, with public support, under the title civil unions or domestic partners.  Same-sex marriage is not.  We may not like that fact, however, it is none-the-less a fact.  Why the leaders of our community do not see the obvious is beyond my understanding.  It is time that someone in the lesbian and gay community tell our leaders that their strategy on same-sex marriage has failed.  We must return to the successful strategy of attaining our rights through civil unions and domestic partners which has worked well for over 20 years.

Who among us will be brave enough to say, “The emperor has no clothes” before we are all stripped naked of our rights.

****************************************************

Leland Traiman is a gay man who has worked most of his adult life for equal right for lesbians and gay men.  He chaired the 1984 Domestic Partner Task Force for the City of Berkeley which wrote the first domestic partner policy enacted into law.  He was the first coordinator for the Berkeley Gay Men's Health Collective in 1977.  He successfully fought the Food and Drug Administration when the FDA tried to make it illegal for gay men to be sperm donors. (The FDA still advised against it but they did not put it in their regulations.)  He currently runs the world's only gay sperm bank and fertility service.  He lives with his domestic partner of seventeen years and their two children.

Lesbians and gay men have already lost the fight for same-sex marriage and it is time to move on to a fight we can win.

Same-sex marriage with all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage cannot exist in the United States in the near future.  Here is why:  Forty-five states have laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Source: Human Rights Campaign)  There has been over 48 million votes cast on this issue in 29 states and almost 32 million, almost two-thirds, voted against same-sex marriage.  As the noted gay historian and professor at the University of Illinois, John D’Emilio, observed in his 2006 article, The Marriage Fight Is Setting Us Back, “The campaign for same-sex marriage has been an unmitigated disaster.  It has created a vast body of new anti-gay laws.”  There has already been, in effect, a national referendum and we have lost……BIG.

Real Marriage Does Not Exist in Massachusetts
Despite the title, “marriage”, same-sex marriage with all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage does not even exist in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts’s same-sex marriage, California’s domestic partners, and Vermont and New Jersey’s civil unions all have the same federal benefits of marriage: zero.

Anecdotal reports of inappropriate or anomalous implementation of California’s two and one-half year old comprehensive domestic partner laws would not be solved by changing the title to marriage.  Lesbians and gay men in Massachusetts have reported problems with their state’s implementation of same-sex marriage.  Like California, Massachusetts’s legislature is having to plug some holes because both of these policies are new.  Any new and comprehensive policy, no matter how well written, will have bumps along the road to implementation. (The Gay & Lesbian Review 5/2007 page 6, Marriage Equality Not a Reality In Mass. by Dale Mitchell, Cofounder, LGBT Aging Project, Boston, MA)

The Myth About Same-Sex Marriage
There is a myth that marriage has more rights and benefits than civil unions/domestic partners.  That myth is born from the fact that civil unions/domestic partners have only been passed by states.  States have no power to grant the 1138 federal benefits of marriage.  However, a national civil union policy would.  Senators Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, & Biden have pledge to support a national civil union policy.

Separate but Equal Argument is Historically Incorrect
Same-sex marriage activists will say, “Separate is not equal.”  Analogy to Brown v. Board of Education (1954, US Supreme Court) is a common error which ignores the historical facts.  “Separate but equal” was invented by white supremacists in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896, US Supreme Court) to oppress African-Americans.  Domestic Partners was invented by a gay man, Tom Brougham, in 1982 and advanced by lesbian and gay organizations to obtain the benefits of marriage when most lesbians and gay men  viewed marriage as a discredited patriarchal institution.  Indeed, the acceptance of civil unions/domestic partners is more comparable to Brown than to Plessy.

Facing Reality: The Way Forward
A clear majority of voters support civil unions with all the same rights, benefits and obligations of marriage but oppose support same-sex marriage.  Illogical?  Yes!  But it is a fact we must live with.  (Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of 10/28/2007: 30% support same-sex marriage, 26% support civil unions, 38% oppose any legal recognition for same-sex couples.) 

There have been no successful direct challenges to statewide domestic partner or civil union policies.  Domestic partners and civil unions have been overturned only when they were included in ballot propositions whose primary purpose was to ban same-sex marriage.

All of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage are attainable, with public support, under the title civil unions or domestic partners.  Same-sex marriage is not.  We may not like that fact, however, it is none-the-less a fact.  Why the leaders of our community do not see the obvious is beyond my understanding.  It is time that someone in the lesbian and gay community tell our leaders that their strategy on same-sex marriage has failed.  We must return to the successful strategy of attaining our rights through civil unions and domestic partners which has worked well for over 20 years.

Who among us will be brave enough to say, “The emperor has no clothes” before we are all stripped naked of our rights.

****************************************************

Leland Traiman is a gay man who has worked most of his adult life for equal right for lesbians and gay men.  He chaired the 1984 Domestic Partner Task Force for the City of Berkeley which wrote the first domestic partner policy enacted into law.  He was the first coordinator for the Berkeley Gay Men’s Health Collective in 1977.  He successfully fought the Food and Drug Administration when the FDA tried to make it illegal for gay men to be sperm donors. (The FDA still advised against it but they did not put it in their regulations.)  He currently runs the world’s only gay sperm bank and fertility service.  He lives with his domestic partner of seventeen years and their two children.