Last Sunday (May 20th), South Bay Alliance celebrated their official "coming out" as part of the LGBT community. We invited everyone we knew and as family's do, they showed up to affirm our commitment to each other. The ages spanned from around 2 to 70 something. There were mothers and their children, a father and his daughter, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, best friends, LGBT and straight sharing community on a sunny, slightly windy morning overlooking dozens of sail boats tied to the dock.
Michelle Doty Cabrera (One of the founding members of South Bay Alliance) came down from Sacramento to talk with us. Her talk centered on California's domestic partnership laws that provide most of the protections the state can give us without the federal government allowing LGBT families to be legitimized nationally. Scanning the families in this Sunday brunch group, the argument that our nation does not have to honor its commitment to fairness and equal application of the law because some feel LGBT families are against their religion and will somehow destroy the "specialness" of heterosexual marriages rang very hollow.
To accept the principal that all law must be equally applied is not somehow anathema to our nation's Christian influence. It was that very freedom to practice differing religious beliefs that led our founding fathers to create a civil institution of marriage that did not belong to a particular church. The legal privileges were not granted only to certain marriages that happened within particular religions or denominations, but were granted based upon our government's recognition of a civil contract of marriage. Any who look into the legal history and do not want to move towards a theocratic government, sees the fallacy of invoking religious arguments as the basis for marginalizing and legislating against a particular group.
Even the argument that legal recognition and protection of LGBT families would somehow destroy the fabric of society sounds ludicrous in light of the absence of change in states that have domestic partnerships, civil unions, or same sex marriage. Massachusetts has even seen a decrease in divorces since legalizing gay marriage. Perhaps we all need to have a discussion of what exactly marriage entails so that we can be reminded of its importance and our responsibilities to our chosen mate.
The issue here is other people's desire to legislate their own particular religious beliefs, eroding the very basis of our democracy - equality before the law, separation of church and state, and inalienable rights for all human kind - not just those that follow our personal beliefs. Without that, every religion is at risk, dissent becomes defined as unpatriotic, and our liberty will be a dream of the past that we let slip through our fingers.
I want to believe that those who are against marriage equality speak out of ignorance, have not sat having Sunday brunch with both heterosexual and gay families sharing and communing together. I can not imagine someone sharing these times of community without seeing all the families there as deserving of protection by our government. Shouldn't part of our freedom to pursue happiness be that we have the right to determine our intimate relationships and who we choose as our legal spouse?
by D. Elliott
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