Why discuss gay marriage

First posted 2008 November 22 on a separate website.

Friends have asked me why it matters to argue about the names of partnerships like civil unions and marriages. As a country, I think we must maintain awareness of other issues including torture, education, and social security, but the question of gay marriage has arisen in various ballot initiatives and court cases, and I have personal experience being a sincere and fervent support of opposing sides in this debate, so I feel people might be interested in my perspective.

The gay marriage debate embraces at least three questions: (1) What set of legal rights and responsibilities enumerated under traditional civil marriage laws should government afford same-sex relationships? (2) If the response to (1) is that the rights and responsibilities afforded to same-sex and heterosexual couples should be the same, then should the legal constructs afforded to these kinds of couples be given the same legal name? (3) If the response to (2) is that same-sex and heterosexual couples should be indistinguishable in legal nomenclature, should the label afforded both kinds of couples be civil unions, marriage, or something else? In practice it is by far most important to answer question (1), but the question at hand in California is actually (2). California answered question (1) by providing domestic partnerships, which enumerate for same-sex couples all of the rights that civil marriages enumerate for heterosexual couples. The court case "In re: Marriage Cases" and Proposition 8 ask question (2): should these enumerated rights be enumerated under the same label. Does it matter? Think of all the vows that you've ever heard at gay and straight weddings. Remember how the partners described how they improved and completed each other. Remember how they described their feelings and lives. Your mileage may vary, but as far as I can tell, the relative sexes of the partners distinguishes the meaning of the vows in the same way as their relative skin colors--with consequence insufficient to distinguish the unions in name. In my personal philosophy, neither the distinction between same-sex and heterosexual unions nor the distinction between interracial and intrarracial should be recognized in the names of those legal unions. Having a segregated legal vocabulary, with its connotations lent to the vernacular, could encourage a culture of viewing these distinctions, rather than the orientation-neutral aspects of the family-forming process, as the important features that deserve to define the unions. I don't think that's beneficial for family values. In my experience, Evangelical Christian theocrats constitute a disproportionate fraction of proponents for reserving a distinguished name for heterosexual unions. I draw a partial parallel with Christian support into the twentieth century for reserving a distinct name for intraracial unions. In both cases, the reservation of a special term for heterosexual legal unions has for significant motivation and effect the respect of conservative Abrahamic beliefs. In the case of gay unions, I believe this religious influence is not merely significant, but primary, so I find nomenclature segregation unconstitutional on first amendment grounds.