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State Senator Frank Morse held a Town Hall in Albany tonight (May 31, 2005) on the issue of Civil Unions. He's sponsoring HB1000 (a combined civil union/non-discrimination bill that was too much and is basically dead) and HB1073 (just the civil union part stripped out, as it actually has a chance of passing). This is a revised version of what I had posted here on May 26 and planned to say (all I actually had the time to do was ask if we really believed in Freedom and Equality or not?). It's what I wish I'd had prepared and been able to say there (some of it is actually a response to what was said, but most of that is in the next blog entry):
I feel like I've awoken and the country has turned into a theocracy. Actually, I've been feeling the trend that direction for sometime, but the strength of the religious discussion tonight absolutely frightens me. I beg people to look at the Middle East, or even Ireland, and ask, "is this *really* the direction I want this country to go?"
More fundamentally, does this country, and particularly, our state, believe in freedom and equality or not? Unfortunately, it's becoming all too clear that the answer is NOT.
For me, marriage is an expression of love and commitment, and while I honestly believe that most of the opponents of gay marriage don't believe this, the effect of what they're saying to us is that marriage is an elitist expression of bigotry: "I got mine and you can't have it! Nyah nyah nyah!". One women even got up and although I can't remember the exact words, said something to the effect of "if we give you equal rights, everyone will want them". I couldn't believe my ears.
There were people that even had the audacity to claim that civil unions were special rights. I have a hard time believing that people are really so clueless as to believe that making a group of people second class citizens is "special rights". Expletive Deleted.
The fact is, for most of the opponents, marriage is a religious institution, which brings up two points:
1. It has no business in government at all. The "special rights" people are right about one thing: the civil union bill *should* be inclusive, and should *replace* the legal aspects of marriage for *all* relationships who want to commit to mutual love and support of one another.
2. If their goal is to block gay marriage, they've already lost that battle: there are a number of churches that will happily marry same-sex couples. The battle now is over the civil union part, not the marriage part.
What government's legitimate role in this area is, for practical purposes, is as arbiter: relationships are a common thing for people to get into, with a number of legal ramifications. And, unfortunately, for people to undo, often acrimoniously. For those reasons, it's reasonable to define a standard set of rights and responsibilities for people who want to commit to supporting one another, whoever they may be, subject to modification with the mutual agreement of all concerned.
This is, in essence, what a civil union is. It's not very romantic definition, but it's not government's place to put the romance in a relationship --- that's up to the people involved in the relationship. Government's place is to make sure that all people are treated fairly and equally. And if Oregon's not going to do it, we just as well scrap Article I, Section 20 of our Constitution:
No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.
This is not promoting anything. It's simply dealing with the basic and common legal issues surrounding families.
I want to return for a moment to the beginning, and the concept of freedom: the freedom to be or do only what others approve of is no freedom at all. If I'm only allowed to do what you or anyone else approve of, there is no freedom, no matter how long the leash may be: it's still a leash. Freedom only has meaning if you are willing to allow people to do things you disapprove of. Then we truly have freedom.