Son of Timatollah

New Hampshire's civil union law, same-sex marriage pseudo-equivalence, kicked in with the start of the new year. Story here, from USA Today.

Of course, thanks to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (signed into law by Bill Clinton), even married same-sex partners are denied over a thousand benefits that different-sexed married partners receive under Federal laws and regulations. Add to that some state-dependent number of benefits, and what do you get: Ugly, face-value discrimination based on an arbitrary life characteristic that has nothing to do with the ability to form what's indistinguishable from many contemporary families except for the same gender of the pair at the family's nucleus. Then throw in these marriage amendments, like the one being proposed for Florida, that not only prohibit gay marriage, but also restrict the ability of states, communities, and businesses to recognize and support domestic partnerships and civil unions

It's time for GLBT folk to stop accepting second-class citizenship. It's time for us and our allies to label accurately what is un-American, anti-freedom behavior on the part of those who support such discrimination. Make a measure in your mind of the similarities between the social qualities our enemies, the terrorists, are trying to achieve and those our Christian fundamentalists strive for, and call it as you see it.

I'm not endorsing the culture war the other side seems to want: I'm for respectful engagement and trying to understand what others claim as their legitimate concerns, for giving the other side the respect it refuses to give us. But I'm for taking the blinders off, losing the shame many of us still buy into, and using language as accurately as possible. By respecting ourselves, by refusing to cower before the views of those who try and actually do oppress us (even as we try to respect them and understand their views), we can put an end to this nonsense and achieve statutory recognition of the rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, including marriage—that are ours by simple virtue of existing.

Labels: doma, gay, marriage