Kate Branch branc101@chapman.edu 617-733-3716 Alumna, CAS ’03
After reading Aaron Camire’s letter about the indirect effects of the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s ruling allowing gay marriage, I felt compelled to write. Camire makes the same arguments that have been made over and over again but fail the address the basic unfairness of denying marriage to homosexuals.
Camire argues that homosexuals have made a choice knowing full well that they would not be entitled to all those freedoms guaranteed to other people. Bullshit. It’s not a choice. You don’t choose to be gay, and even if you did, at the point where you are considering marriage, you are no longer choosing that lifestyle, you are living it. Allowing homosexuals to marry recognizes that they are people, fully capable of the love and commitment attributed to heterosexuals. It dignifies and equalizes who they are and their standing in this country.
Quite frankly, I do not understand why this is even an issue. Up until 1964, people of different races could not marry. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia granted that right to people of separate races under the 14th Amendment and made it enforceable in all states via the full faith and credit clause. Why is gay marriage any different?
The potential harms that Camire sites come from the specific language of the DFP editorial (“forbidding loving couples to marry clearly denies them the dignity and equality afforded to all other citizens”). The disadvantages he indicates, man-boy marriages, father-daughter marriages, 35 year olds marrying 15 year olds, and polygamy are all prevented by statutes, with solid public policy reasons behind them. Man-boy and 35-15 marriages are prohibited because of the fact that one party is a minor, legally incapable of entering into such a contract. Father-daughter marriage is prohibited because, I don’t know, maybe the U.S does not want to promote incest. And polygamy is prohibited because it devalues women and because polygamist unions are generally formed by coercive methods. There is something inherently dangerous about permitting those types of activities, but making that slippery-slope argument fails in this context.
Camire’s final argument is that we should not change centuries of Western tradition. This argument is fraught with holes, namely that just because something is tradition does not mean that it should be tolerated if it discriminatory. The only reason things like slavery and discrimination against women, immigrants, minorities are now unconstitutional is because our perception of the importance and humanity of those classes of people has changed. Likewise, society’s understanding of homosexuality is changing and becoming more inclusive, and that shift should be recognized and codified in the law.
In 1780 John Adams did not define marriage, much like the U.S. Constitution was intentionally vague, in order to accommodate the challenges facing future generations of Americans. This is one of those challenges, and the onus is on us to end discrimination against homosexuals and allow them to have the same rights granted to every other American.
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