Gay marriage up close and personal

JOSEPH N. BELL

Last Sunday, my extended family convened -- as we have for each of

the 20 years I’ve had membership in this family -- to watch the

Academy Awards.

We ate some spaghetti and drank some wine and competed fiercely

for the movie passes that went to the person picking the most

winners. There was a remarkable variety of people representing a

remarkable variety of political and religious convictions. But for

this night, we were united by our love for movies and each other.

There was also a passel of both small and grown children, the

grown ones engaged in the award ceremonies, the small ones hovering

about the perimeter of the TV viewing room, raucous but happily

involved with one another. Two of these children -- delightful

sisters of 7 and 4 -- belong to a pair of dedicated, family-oriented

women now in the sights of the president of the United States, who

has pledged his support to a Constitutional amendment that would

prevent them from ever legalizing their relationship in marriage.

Jill and Lori have spent two decades protecting the rest of us in

frequently dangerous law enforcement work. They have been together

for 10 years in a stable, loving relationship that should serve as a

model for a successful family rather than a target for politicians

and religious fundamentalists who want to project their own fears and

rigidities over an entire society. Throughout these years, Jill and

Lori have demonstrated to associates and superiors that their

preference in a mate has nothing to do with the other stuff of life

-- skill and dedication in work, involvement in social and community

affairs, strong and loving parenting. Proving themselves has been a

continuing challenge, and I have watched them meet it with admiration

and a growing sense that the legal restrictions our society has put

on them are terribly unfair, unwarranted and probably illegal.

I found a quiet corner to talk with Jill and Lori about these

matters during our Oscar evening. They told me they had considered

joining the legions of gay people seeking to marry in San Francisco

during the last two weeks but decided against it.

“In our minds, we are married,” said Jill. “We already have that.

We’re proud and supportive of the people who are stepping forward and

paving the way for us in San Francisco, but we have two small kids

and can’t put them through what is happening there. And we have no

idea of the legality of it, whether that ceremony would end up

providing us any more rights than we have now.”

“Besides,” added Lori, “I don’t want to get married on CNN or at

City Hall. That’s not my style. I want to get married with a

minister, in a church. Why shouldn’t we be able to do that?”

Meanwhile, they are often forced to function on the edges of

society, required to explain themselves under circumstances that

require no explanation from heterosexual families. Like the day their

oldest child fell and suffered a deep cut on her chin. Jill took her

to an emergency room where Jill’s legitimacy was challenged because

she wasn’t the birth mother. As a result, treatment was refused until

Lori was called and came to the hospital. Or the need to travel

several hundred miles to find a hospital that would permit Jill to be

present when Lori delivered their first baby.

“We wouldn’t wish these problems on anyone,” said Jill. “That’s

why it outrages me so much when people say we had a choice. We

didn’t. But we did have the same creator as everyone else, so why

should we be denied the rights all other citizens enjoy?”

“We’re fighting for equal rights just like interracial couples not

very many years ago,” said Lori. “This isn’t easy to explain when our

kids ask us if we are married. We can only tell them that we’ll

always be together, and our hearts tell us that we are married, but

it’s not yet legal. I like to say to people who quote the Bible to us

that morality is our love for one another and legality is a matter

for the government, and we must not confuse the two. We will legalize

our relationship in our own way, whenever we know that is possible.”

The greatest puzzle to Jill and Lori -- as it is to me -- is how

the legalization of marriage for gay couples can threaten the people

who so strongly oppose it.

“I saw two women who had been together for 50 years standing in

line in the rain in San Francisco,” said Jill. “How could a marriage

between these two loving people possibly threaten anyone else’s

marriage?”

How indeed?

A few days before the Academy Awards, the Democratic presidential

candidates were asked in a debate where they stood on gay marriage.

The last two serious survivors -- John Kerry and John Edwards --

waffled the question, saying they approved civil unions but the

question of marriage should be left to the states. The other two

debaters -- Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich -- who didn’t have to

worry about political correctness, said flatly and forcibly that it

was not a dispute for individual states to decide but a national

matter of human rights. No consenting adults in this nation, they

said, should be denied a right other adults have, especially when it

damages no one else. This was in line with the U.S. Supreme Court

decision last year, in Lawrence vs. Texas, that recognized the

constitutional right of adults to choose how to conduct their sexual

lives, concluding that “the Court’s obligation is to define the

liberty of all, not to mandate its own moral code.”

That also goes for the portion of our society -- apparently

including our president -- whose religious views would deny such

rights to the gay community. They might be surprised to find a fair

number of mainstream Christian churches that would be pleased to host

Jill and Lori’s wedding.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.