Divorce the State

A Solution to the Same-sex Marriage Problem Everyone Can Get Behind

Originally published in the Cubby Missalette

That recent Federal Court ruling overturning CA's Proposition 8 was at best a necessary evil, and at worst a diversion from a better strategy for solving the same-sex marriage problem. I say necessary because it is always best to eviscerate explicit injustice and discrimination from the law whenever possible. But I also say evil because—as a tactic in the fight for justice and equality for LGBTQ people—the ruling hurtles us further down a path that takes us in the wrong direction.

State involvement in determining who should get married is bogus. Marriage should not be a power of the State. As long as the State is involved in deciding who can get married, the underlying injustice and discrimination that is inherent in the old-fashioned model of marriage will be perpetuated.

The crusade to legalize same-sex marriage only seeks to empower the State to be more involved in our private lives, and in a perverse way just extends and reinforces a centuries-old way of thinking about class and privilege. The vision of justice that same-sex marriage proponents want is incomplete. They want certain rights for themselves, and they don't see that their goal will just re-draw the lines between the haves and the have-nots. Achieving state-sanctioned same-sex marriage will do nothing to advance the rights of ALL individuals, or afford protections to the underprivileged.

Marriage undeniably has its place in society, and I even believe LGBTQ people should have equal opportunity to participate in the ritual and pageantry of marriage. As one of my like-minded friends put it, “I love weddings.” But weddings and marriage are not the same. Weddings are events that two people and/or their families co-create to ceremonialize and solemnize their vows to one another. I wish we could focus on making marriage about these vows, about the promises two people make to each other. In other words, make marriage totally private—between the parties involved alone—and not involve the State one iota.

Married to the State demo @ NY Public Library
"Clones for Marriage" | Frank Susa © 2004

Ceremony, pageantry, declarations of love, sanctification—even legal compacts between two individuals if they so choose—are all fine. But there's no inherent need for the State to be licensing marriages, gay or straight. Let whomever bond however they wish. But let's empower the People, not the State to make it all official.

I say, let’s form a movement to divorce the State from being a part of any marriage. Let people who wish to marry handle all their issues privately. Contract law is robust enough to legalize so called "unions" between two people. And the state doesn't have to be involved at all, unless the contract is violated or one party wishes to dissolve it.

It's a solution that should work for everyone, if we all thought about it a little more. Fundamentalist religious people can have their anti-gay churches. Gay people can have their shared property. Liberals can have their fun suing each other in the courts. Libertarians can get on board because we’d be calling for more rigorous separation of Church and State. What's more, anarchists should also agree since nobody will be denying anyone access to anything. Even polygamists can get in on the fun.

Divorce the State and make marriage a completely private affair. It's the only way for us all to get what we really want—the basic human right to freely love who we want, how we want.

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Many Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret

 by SCOTT JAMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html

When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy.

“I take it as a gift that someone will be that open and honest and sharing with me,” said Rio, using the word “open” to describe their marriage.

Love brought the middle-age couple together — they wed during California’s brief legal window for same-sex marriage. But they knew from the beginning that their bond would be forged on their own terms, including what they call “play” with other women.

As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to groundbreaking new research.

A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.

New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”
The study also found open gay couples just as happy in their relationships as pairs in sexually exclusive unions, Dr. Hoff said. A different study, published in 1985, concluded that open gay relationships actually lasted longer.

None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.

According to the research, open relationships almost always have rules.

That is how it works for Chris and James. Over drinks upstairs at the venerable Twin Peaks Tavern in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco, they beamed as they recalled the day in June 2008 that they donned black suits and wed at City Hall, stunned by the outpouring of affection from complete strangers. “Even homeless people and bike messengers were congratulating us,” said Chris, 42.

A couple since 2002, they opened their relationship a year ago after concluding that they were not fully meeting each other’s needs. But they have rules: complete disclosure, honesty about all encounters, advance approval of partners, and no sex with strangers — they must both know the other men first. “We check in with each other on this an awful lot,” said James, 37.

That transparency can make relationships stronger, said Joe Quirk, author of the best-selling relationship book “It’s Not You, It’s Biology.”

“The combination of freedom and mutual understanding can foster a unique level of trust,” Mr. Quirk, of Oakland, said.

“The traditional American marriage is in crisis, and we need insight,” he said, citing the fresh perspective gay couples bring to matrimony. “If innovation in marriage is going to occur, it will be spearheaded by homosexual marriages.”

Open relationships are not exclusively a gay domain, of course. Deb and Marius are heterosexual, live in the East Bay and have an open marriage. She belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and maintained her virginity until her wedding day at 34. But a few years later, when the relationship sputtered, both she and her husband, who does not belong to the church, began liaisons with others.

“Our relationship got better,” she said. “I slept better at night. My blood pressure went down.”
Deb and Marius also have rules, including restrictions on extramarital intercourse. “To us,” Marius said, “cheating would be breaking the agreement we have with each other. We define our relationship, not a religious group.”

So while the legal fight over same-sex marriage plays out, couples say the real battle is making relationships last — and their answers defy the prevailing definition of marriage.

“In 1900, the average life span for a U.S. citizen was 47,” Mr. Quirk said. “Now we’re living so much longer, ‘until death do us part’ is twice as challenging.”

Scott James is an Emmy-winning television journalist and novelist who lives in San Francisco.

Separate church and state: Abolish marriage!

The opinion given in today's CA Supreme Court ruling demonstrates how the fight for same-sex marriage continues to reinforce injustice, not support it. The "Marriage Equality" movement continues to empower the State and a majority of Americans in making sweeping decisions that interfere with the private lives of many, many non-traditional families, and not just queer ones.

The assimilationist strategies that mainline LGBT orgs have been pursuing -- despite their recent successes in the northeast and Iowa -- reinforce long-standing traditions of privileges for the few, not equal rights for all. Lisa Duggan put it this way in a Feb 2006 article in the Nation:

"In a bid for equality, some gay groups are producing rhetoric that insults and marginalizes unmarried people, while promoting marriage in much the same terms as the welfare reformers use to stigmatize single-parent households, divorce and "out of wedlock" births. If pursued in this way, the drive for gay-marriage equality can undermine rather than support the broader movement for social justice and democratic diversity."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040315/duggan

Even if the CA Supreme Court had overturned Prop 8 today, they would not have ushered in a new era of justice. All this gay marriage advocacy stuff does is support (and even INVITE) the State's interference in our vastly diverse and often non-traditional private lives.

Progressives, libertarians and conservatives CAN share common ground on the issue of so-called "same-sex marriage." Privatizing marriage (separating church and state) is a winnable fight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_privatization

While Alan Dershowitz is not my favorite legal scholar, on this issue I think he gets it right:

"Though some traditionalists would be certain to balk at an explicit division between marriage and civil union, a majority of Americans already agree that gay couples should be allowed to join in secular unions with the rights and responsibilities that generally accompany marriage.

So let each couple decide whether they want to receive the sacrament of marriage or the secular status of civil union. And let the state get out of the business of determining who should receive holy sacraments."