Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

I felt compelled to re-link to this blog entry after the recent comment on my entry about Google’s taking an official stance against Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment which would literally dissolve thousands of legal marriages across the state of California (and they say LGBT Californians are trying to destroy marriage?).

In my article, Five Myths About Same-Sex Marriage, I discuss some of the common arguments folks will make against same-gender marriage in California. One of the key arguments put forth by most Prop 8 supporters is the “overwhelming” passage of Prop 22 in March of 2000. Do not believe them. Prop 22 did pass, and at first glance it passed with a hefty majority – but once you look at the numbers more closely, you’ll see that it definitely didn’t pass with the level of support claimed by proponents of Proposition 8.

This shouldn’t surprise you, though – these are the same people who brought you Proposition 22 in the first place, and if they were willing to lie about the motives and goals of Prop 22 in order to confuse voters into supporting it (it was supposed to be about marriages from other states), then they’re certainly not going to balk at lying about its outcome and its passage rates.

If people start throwing Prop 22 in your face, I encourage you to either direct them to the article or show them the numbers so they see the truth about Prop 22. Odds are they will refuse to see the truth, but if even one mind is changed, then that is better than nothing.

As for the “bride and groom” issue raised by the commenter in the Google entry, here is the response I sent:

It’s not “illegal” for you to marry as bride and groom. You are still a bride and groom regardless of what title the form gives you. If you are a woman, you are a bride. If you are a man, you are a groom. That doesn’t change. It wouldn’t make sense for a same-gender couple to have to decide which is the bride and which is the groom – contrary to popular jokes and beliefs, there isn’t that kind of gender dichotomy in a same-gender relationship.

It’s the same as with parents; a child’s parents are still mother and father (or mother and mother, or father and father), even if the birth certificate says parent 1 and parent 2. Listing them as the first and second parent of the child doesn’t change the fact that they are a mother or a father. It’s not like the child is going to run around saying, “Hey Parent 1, Parent 2 said to ask you if I can go outside and play with my friends!” It’s not like Hallmark is going to start putting out “Parent 1’s Day” cards. A man is a father, and a woman is a mother. Reality is reality, and a form is just a form, for bureaucratic purposes and nothing else.

If you have a church wedding, I am quite certain your clergyman will be more than happy to refer to you as bride and groom. As for me, my rabbi referred to us as kallah v’kallah (bride and bride), and that’s exactly how we wanted it. We didn’t need to strong-arm the government into giving us a special form that says “bride and bride.” We wouldn’t want it. The state license simply does not discriminate, and that is the whole point. There is no reason for a state form to impose or mandate specific gender permutations, because the gendered titles are pretty self-explanatory by themselves. If you need a form to tell you whether you are a bride or a groom, or a mother or a father, then you have bigger problems than I am trained to address.

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