Hello, Jim Crow
Today, homosexual couples in Oregon can register for domestic partnership, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexual couples in the state. While I believe that homosexuals are entitled to the same rights in every facet of life as everyone else (they are people, aren’t they?), this whole business of domestic partnership reeks of ’separate but equal’ treatment.
When we allow those ‘different’ from us similar access to services though under different circumstances, it is not equal treatment at all. Think back to when African-Americans had to drink from different water fountains throughout America. It was the same water, right? Yes, but access was restricted for “colored” folks to “white” water fountains. So then why can homosexuals not have access to the same marriage as heterosexuals?
The Jim Crow laws were officially overturned in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education decision. I would like to see a legal challenge mounted against these ’separate but equal’ domestic partnership laws on the legal precedent of the cases that desegregated America. As Humanists, we can’t sit idly by and be content with this segregationist legal logic being currently applied by the most liberal states in America.
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I’m with your outrage on this. I live in (and perform marriages in) Massachusetts, and am happy to say that the prevailing culture’s reaction to same-sex marriage has gone from “Wow! Neat!” to “That’s nice. Ho-hum.” Despite an active and well-financed troglodytes minority, most citizens have absorbed the obvious truth that same-sex marriage is not a threat to society, religion or marriage.
However, I doubt that there is any chance of applying such precedents as Brown to this issue — ignoring the Court’s apparent determination to overturn Brown along with Roe and a few of those pesky first ten amendments. We’re a long legal way for seeing homosexuals as a protected class. But, perhaps more important, I think it would be hard to show the kind of overwhelming evidence available in Brown that a solution like Oregon’s, providing for “the same rights as heterosexual couples” is severely harmful to same-sex couples, above whatever stigmata they already suffer.
I think that Massachustte’s constitutional decision is a stronger precedent, although not binding on states that don’t want to be bound by it. So i think actual, rather than legal, action is required. I wonder what would happen if same-sex couples began to apply for “Domestic Partnership” licenses. That would get across the message that the concept is meaningless and, perhaps better, lead to a total separation between civil marriage, as an economic contract recognized by law, and the various religious rituals that really should no longer be “legal.”
But the question still remains: how can we challenge the ’separate but equal’ treatment of homosexuals in these states that allow civil unions? I know it seems oxymoronic to go after the states that allow homosexual close to marriage, but this ‘Jim Crowness’ of these laws can’t be ignored!
My guess is people will begin to realize ’separate but equal’ isn’t as fair as they once claimed it was when they see how heterosexuals can also be screwed by the system. Case in point: in Orange County, California, a judge has ordered a Mr. Ron Garber to pay alimony to his ex-wife, Melinda Kirkwood, despite the fact that she is in a registered domestic partnership with another woman. The reason why? California doesn’t recognize gay marriage. Thus Kirkwood is entitled to over $1,000 a month from Garber until she marries a man or dies.
Now the next time those in the anti-gay marriage camp ask why marriage really matters to gay couples if civil unions offer similar benefits maybe we’ll have an answer that will resonate.
See this website from the UK, campaigning on a similar topic:
http://www.equalmarriagerights.org/
Also:
http://www.brightsonline.net/campaigns/wilkinsonkitzinger/
Thanks for the links. Good to know people in the UK are also unhappy with the this ’separate but equal’ treatment.