I’ve been very, very disappointed on the whole gay marriage/civil union thing. My anger at first was towards Bush and his folks, back when I looked at this as an equal protection/civil rights issue. Then last night John Kerry was talking to me on NPR, and I realized what a complete sell out he is on this too. Here’s some quotes:

Bush (in the State of the Union): A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under Federal law as the union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states. Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people’s voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.

[full transcript]

Then in the car last night, Kerry weighed in:

NPR: Would you support a constitutional amendment that would define a marriage as a heterosexual union?
Kerry: Well it depends entirely on the language, as to whether it permits civil union and partnership or not. I’m for civil union, I’m for partnership rights. I think what ought to condition this debate is not the term “marriage”, as much as the rights that people are afforded. Obviously under the constitution of the United States you need equal protection under the law, and I think “equal protection” means the rights that go along with it. I think the word “marriage” kind of gets in the way of the whole debate, to be honest with you, because “marriage” to many people obviously is what is sanctified by a church, it’s sacremental. Or by a synagogue, or by a mosque, or by whatever religious connotation it has, and clearly there’s a separation of church and state here.
NPR: And why would you support civil union, or what you call “partnership rights”, and not gay marriage then?
Kerry: Because I think marriage is a separate institution. Marriage is I think, under the church, between a man and a woman, and I think there’s a separate meaning to it, that’s why.
NPR: Even for marriages that aren’t conducted in a house of worship?
Kerry: Correct, even for those that aren’t, there’s still two meanings. I mean the State picked up the concept afterwards, I mean it’s a late comer to the State. You know for those who have separate beliefs, there ought to be a way here to be able to deal with it. But what you call something is not that critical.
NPR: You were one of 14 senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage act back in 1996 that was signed by President Clinton.
Kerry: Correct
NPR: Why did you oppose that bill?
Kerry: I opposed it because I thought it was gay-bashing on the floor of the United States Senate. It was one of those examples of ideological Republicans trying to drive wedges into the electorate of America, and I objected to the Senate being used for that, even as I still said at the time that I don’t personally support “marriage” [presumably of gays, not marriage generally - ed.], as we understand it in the context of religion.

[Transcribed by me from the NPR audio]

Ok, those were chunky quotes. Here’s the meat of both: both men think that “Separation of Church and State” means that the State should dictate religion to everyone, because to not do so would cause people who believe in certain things to get upset. “Our Nation must defend the sanctity of anything” or “anything is under the church”… I think the thing which pisses me off most is that nobody seems to be addressing the issue that this isn’t about gay rights — it’s about the right to practice and believe whatever you want. It’s about the state interfering in one of the most fundamental and private aspects of anyone’s life: religion and belief. It’s not, as John Kerry would like to hope, issue of the 14th Amendment about equal protection under the law — civil unions can indeed provide equal protection under the law if the state were to just search-and-replace all current law to put “civil union” in instead of “marriage” everywhere (thereby completely removing “marriage” from the realm of law), it’s a 1st Amendment issue — they want to amend “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” to actually allow Congress to restrict our religious freedoms on this issue, codifying the “sanctity” of marriage. What pisses me off only slightly less than the dishonesty and pandering here is that Howard Dean doesn’t have the cojones to stand in the right place on this. Actually, I haven’t read what he’s said about the MA court decision which declared his previous stand (civil union, not marriage) unconstitutional — and I bet he’d be against a constititutional amendment on this, but I also bet he’s somewhere in the wishy-washy pander-to-the-christians crowd.

In this whole thing, the one person I can almost admire is the NPR interviewer who wanted to know whether it’d still be OK under the state’s enforced religious doctrine to be able to call oneself married, if the ceremony wasn’t performed in a house of worship — and I guess by extension for those of us who are atheists. So most likely the gestapo won’t be at my door if this thing ever does come to pass, ready to take away Evan because Erica and I don’t really believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that our “marriage” is somehow intimately connected with pleasing him and his dad, and so that this not-founded-on-religion marriage is therefore somehow void.

Then this evening, I heard NPR again, this time talking about this. Not sure how to feel on this latest data point — Newsom’s 100% right, but he’s such a slimeball that I just somehow can’t bring myself to believe that he’s not just doing this to draw national attention, and thereby perhaps launch his political career onto a bigger stage.