Pursuit of happiness

Andrew Sullivan wrote an article for Newsweek discussing the importance of gay marriage. As a kid coming to grips with being gay he realized my parents have a great relationship. I can't have that. It was a psychic wound that did not heal until he met his partner and had his own wedding in Massachusetts four years ago. "I did not hear civilization crumble. I felt a wound being healed."

In America, marriage to the one you love has been seen as a fundamental right, confirmed many times by the Supremes. The roots of that right are older than the Constitution, originating in the "pursuit of happiness" clause of the Declaration of Independence. Extending marriage to gays is very American.


In the same issue, the very next article, Cynthia Nixon talks of the joy of hearing the news that gay marriage passed the New York senate. She is now planning a wedding with her girlfriend.

The fight for gay marriage is often portrayed in political terms—Democrat versus Republican, liberal versus conservative. But for couples like us, this is about something simpler and more personal. I want to be married to my girlfriend. And I want us to have a ceremony. I want all our friends and family to come, and I want our kids to be there.

City clerk's offices in New York City knew Sunday, the first day gay marriages can be performed, would be busy. When they received 2661 online applications they knew not all of them could be accommodated on the first day. So they set up a lottery for the 764 open time slots in the offices in all 5 boroughs. Since only 823 applied to the lottery officials decided to accommodate all who applied. Alas, not all who applied for a slot in Manhattan will be able to get married there.



Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin takes on the few city clerks in New York state who refuse to give marriage licenses to gays because of religious convictions. He knows the Bible fairly well, but doesn't know of any doctrine that forbids handing out a piece of paper and entering data in a database. Sure, there are prohibitions on working on the Sabbath, and some even see a prohibition to working in a liquor store. And no one is suggesting a building inspector refuse to certify a building because abortions might be done there or it happens to be for a church whose faith is seen as wrong. And even those who object to handing pieces of paper to gay couples don't have any problem with doing so for those in mixed marriages or those previously divorced. It is a mighty peculiar notion that a public employee can deny services if someone doesn't pass their personal religious test.



A commenter named Dave responding to a similar post by Rob Tisinai clarifies the legal situation.

Religious practices in a religious setting are protected. It makes sense for a Protestant church to discriminate against rabbis when hiring a spiritual leader for the church.

Religious practices in a secular setting must follow relevant equal rights laws. If you rent the church social hall to any secular group (any group that is not your religion) you must rent it to all groups. Processing marriage licenses is a secular setting.

Religious practices of a particular group may be banned if they are banned for all groups, sacred and secular. An example of this is animal sacrifice.



Rob Tisinai, in his own blog, responds to a claim by the National Organization for Marriage. The claim is that yeah, today's youth may be for gay marriage, but people tend to become more conservative as they age (actually, the opposite happened to me). So even though today's youth overwhelmingly support gay marriage that won't always be true. We'll lose them.

Tisinai's response is in two parts: No, we won't lose them. It doesn't matter.

Second response first. Support for gay marriage has increased in all age brackets. It doesn't matter if we lose support from the youth. Even though support in the over 65 crowd is small, it is increasing -- from 18% in 2005 to 33% this year.

And no, we aren't losing them as they age. The 50-64 bracket is more supportive now than the 30-39 bracket was five years ago.

Tisinai concludes by saying we don't have to wait for the bigots to die off. That annoys him because it means some people are waiting for him (and me too) to die off. And he's worked too hard to want to die before seeing the results. We don't have to dismiss any generation.



Back in 1983 Evan Wolfson was a student at Harvard Law School. He decided to write his thesis on the reasons why gays should be allowed to marry. Now look at that year again. This was close to the start of the AIDS crisis and marriage wasn't considered a possibility by most gays. Wolfson is now the head of Freedom to Marry and the arguments he made in that thesis are having an impact. Only 44 states to go.