This is not my blog.

I've had several thoughts just recently that all have converged within the last several days. Last weekend I went to the wedding of a friend of a friend. It was a very nice and simple ceremony in the Nazarene faith (and I took lots of pictures in black and white mode). It was odd to be attending a wedding after having had my 6+ year marriage end just two weeks earlier but I was happy for the young couple who seemed to be ready to start a new life together.

I suppose that these thoughts were still kicking around in my head when I heard this story on NPR about gay couples who were still fighting to be recognized as married people under the law (more on that in a second). Then, while I was thinking about all of this and how it might make an interesting blog post I pulled a sportcoat out of my closet for work yesterday and found a program in the pocket for a Commitment Ceremony that I had attended in Ohio (probably the last time that I had worn it). The Commitment Ceremony was for a former co-worker of my ex who we had biked with on a couple of occasions. I was glad to attend their ceremony ... honored actually ... as it was the first of such ceremonies that I had ever attended.

The Commitment Ceremony was very nice - held at a local park in the late summer. The program was designed by Tina with all of the artwork being hers (including the image above). She and Sandra had picked out some very appropriate poetry to be read by various friends and it was beautiful. Both of them were activists and yesterday I re-read, with great interest, a statement that they had made in the program. It said:

As a celebration, we invite everyone to share in the happiness and love we've found in living our lives together. We also invite you to recognize and respect the commitment we've made to other: to appreciate and enjoy each other's uniqueness and individuality while supporting each other through challenging times as long as it remains healthy and appropriate to do so.

This is not a marriage. We can not be legally married anywhere in the United States except Massachusetts, and then only if we were both Massachusetts residents, which we are not. Ohio enacted the most extreme "Defense of Marriage Act" in the country, and Ohio has on the November ballot an amendment to the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In addition, the federal "Defense of Marriage Act" prohibiting same-sex marriage was enacted in 1996, and the Bush administration continues to support an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to ban same-sex marriage.

Tina and Sandra's commitment ceremony was a beautiful but sad thing when considered in terms of the above statement. Thus, one of the interesting things about the story that I linked above is that it comes from Connecticut which was one of the first states to allow "Civil Unions" for same-sex couples who wanted to have the legal protections and rights that inure to married couples (it was also an essay question on my Constitutional Law final examination). While many states hurried passed into law so-called "Defense of Marriage" propositions to prevent this practice (Ohio was one of them ... including the amendment mentioned above) I find it interesting that this suit has now been filed to go beyond having the legal rights that accompany marriage to having the actual title of "marriage" as recognized by the State.

The argument is a sound one in many ways. Marriage as recognized by the State is merely a recognition of a privately held ceremony that then attaches various legal consequences upon the two people who have undertaken a private contract that is called "marriage". This contract brings with it protections and rights in terms of survivorship with regard to property, adoption and parental rights, hospital visitation rights and the right to make medical decisions, and many other things that the average person never thinks about that homosexual couples must always fight for. Thus, the argument of those who want to be recognized as married is that marriage is no longer exclusively a religious ceremony because the State can marry anybody who wants it. Such a ceremony happens outside of a church and is officiated by a Justice of the Peace or similar official ... so long as it is a man and a woman who are requesting the act.

There are those who say that they don't want their marriage to be devalued by letting anybody get married, be it man and woman, be it woman and woman, or man and dog. I have never thought that this argument was very valid because I never saw how such a thing would "devalue" my marriage. Perhaps what really needs to happen (which means that it never will) is for those who want for marriage to be a religious thing to take that back by encouraging their elected officials to pass a law that says that the State will recognize all private contracts that resemble marriage as "Civil Unions" and will no longer recognize a legal state of "marriage" thus ensuring to make everyone equally mad but also equally situated.

I don't know what the answer is but I do sympathize with same-sex couples who want to have both the legal and emotional benefits of being able to say that they are married. One of the things that has always impressed me with CBS's reality tv show The Amazing Race is that every season they always include a gay couple who are in a committed relationship. What's more impressive is that CBS has always referred to such couples as "married" throughout the show. I do realize that it is an emotional issue and I don't plan to debate anybody on it, but I do hope that we can find some common ground in the future.

Check out other posts in this series:
- freedom to marry ...
- hokey religions and ancient weapons ...
- adventures in gay marriage (california version)