On Thursday, an Oregon court rejected the validity of some 3,000
marriages performed in Portland’s Multnomah County, saying that a
county decision to allow the practice could not supersede the law
of the state, which bans same-sex marriage.
On Thursday, an Oregon court rejected the validity of some 3,000 marriages performed in Portland’s Multnomah County, saying that a county decision to allow the practice could not supersede the law of the state, which bans same-sex marriage.
The decision closely follows a similar one in California, overturning the 4,000 marriages performed in San Francisco after Mayor Gavin Newsom opened the door for same-sex marriage licensing in violation of a state law that strictly defined the bounds of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
These decisions, both rendered in West Coast states well-known for their liberal majorities, were based on laws enacted by the voters themselves.
According to some proponents of same-sex marriage, laws like California’s, which was enacted as a ballot initiative in 2000, are simply right-wing hot buttons used to get conservative voters to the polls, much like the topics of abortion and creationism have in the past.
And California’s law is currently awaiting hearing by the state supreme court after a San Francisco superior court judge ruled it unconstitutional March 14.
However, traditional marriage advocates say they form an majority that has thus far chosen to exercise their opinion in the ballot box, not the street.
“I feel that just because you don’t agree with a definition of something that has been this way since the dawn of time, you can just redefine it to meet what you want out of it,” said Gilroy resident Michelle Hayton, the mother of two small children who said she believes the idea of same-sex marriage represents an attack on a vital social institution. “Marriage between a man and a woman is what the family is built on. And to grow a society, it started with the foundation of marriage.”
But Judge Richard Kramer, a republican appointed under former Gov. Pete Wilson, rejected the argument that marriage is between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation in his 27-page report on California’s ban, issued in March.
The state’s ban on same-sex marriage, he wrote, violates “the basic human right to marry the person of one’s choice.”
“One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry,” Kramer said.
But including same-sex couples in the definition of marriage is a slippery slope, according to Hayton.
Should our society turn toward that track, she said, other, more fringe groups would come forward and demand to be included in the process, too.
That, Hayton said, will lead our society to moral degradation. Christine Sun, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, disagrees.
“The couple we represent and many same-sex couples all over the country are people who have loving, committed relationships, who have families and are community members,” said Sun. “These are teachers and doctors and people who deserve the same sort of recognition that other couples receive. Is it fair that they should be deprived of society’s greatest recognition of a loving relationship?”
And furthermore, muse those who post in online chartrooms where the issue is debated in a nation-wide forum, how sacred is marriage in a country with a 50 percent divorce rate, anyway?
In the land where Britney Spears married childhood friend Jason Alexander for just 48 hours “for the hell of it” and one in five spouses admit to cheating on their partners, according to an Associated Press poll, will it really change that much?
Signs say the answer may be no, if countries that already allow same-sex marriage are any example. In the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage has been on the books for the last three years, same-sex unions continue, albeit at a slower pace than the initial rush in 2001.
The first same-sex divorce cases have been filed, but the topic has become a non-issue on the nation’s political map, and other European countries are now considering the idea of same-sex marriage, conducted in a church and sanctioned by the state, and same-sex civil unions, which are sanctioned by the state, but not conducted in a church.
For those married under the Netherlands’ law, the ceremony has also provided a level of legitimacy in their relationships that couples say they did not receive before.
Anne-Marie Thus and Helene Faasen, who married in 2001, told CBS News that the official sanctioning of their marriage has helped them to be seen as the ordinary couple they believe themselves to be.
“It’s really become less of something that you need to explain,” said Thus. “We take our children to preschool every day. People know they don’t have to be afraid of us.”
And it’s helped others to understand the seriousness with which they approach their bond, said Thus.
“Especially for religious people, marriage makes a statement that ‘this is someone I love and will grow old with’,” she said in the CBS interview. “When you’re just ‘partners’ or ‘living together’ they think … you know, ‘every day a new lover.’ With marriage, the commitment is real, and they believe it.”
But believing in and supporting the commitment of same-sex couples are two different matters, according to the Rev. Pierre Steenberg, pastor of the Hollister Seventh-Day Adventist Church, who believes that conservative viewpoints in the same-sex marriage debate have been ignored by a media culture all too ready to dismiss them.
“I think the media generally favors (same-sex marriage) and they portray people who believe in the Bible as ancient and crazy and lunatics,” said Pierre Steenberg, pastor of the Hollister Seventh-Day Adventist Church. “In that sense, I think it’s dismissed by the media. It’s almost as if it’s ridiculous to believe Scripture, but I think there’s a definite discrepancy between what most media figures believe and what most people believe.”
It’s not that he’s against gay members of society, said Steenberg, but that he’s unable to condone a behavior he believes is sinful. Therefore, he said, he would happily accept a celibate homosexual or lesbian into his congregation, but could not marry a gay couple or give his blessing if they decided to adopt children.
“As with anyone else who is stealing or doing any other sin, I would plead with them to stop,” said Steenberg. “I think we distinguish the person from the act, so we would welcome everybody to attend our church, and we would certainly love the person, but we do not agree with the action.”
Steenberg’s opinions are, by and large, in step with those of many Americans. To date, 39 states have laws on record banning gay marriage, California among them.
Even democratic president Bill Clinton favored heterosexual marriage, signing the Protection of Marriage act into federal law in 1996.
However, some ambivalence is evident in the fact that 30 states are “open” to the adoption of children by gay couples, with only Florida, Utah and Mississippi having any law on the books to prevent such an act.
