First published in the Chicago Free Press, November 1, 2006
My friends Janna and Carrie are married to each other. So are Michelle and Heather, and Amy and Beth. They are married because they love each other and have committed to each other; they are married because they can be.
All three couples live in Massachusetts, which remains, after the New Jersey decision, the only state in the Union where it is legal for gays and lesbians to marry. They are just three of the more than 8,000 gay couples who have married in Massachusetts so far.
The New Jersey Supreme Court could have gone the Massachusetts route, mandating gay marriage. It did not. Instead, in a 4-3 split, the court said that equal rights are not optional. What to call those equal rights is.
The legislature, they said, has 180 days to decide. (All seven judges agreed unanimously that New Jersey’s constitution protects the equal rights of gays and lesbians—the three judges in the minority voted for marriage instead of leaving it open to the legislature.)
This is a wise decision in our political climate. Coming so soon before the November mid-term elections, a ruling that ordered same-sex marriage in New Jersey would likely have propelled forward the anti-marriage amendments that will be on the ballot in eight states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina.
It could have been a disaster. We could have seen a backlash like the one that roiled the country after Massachusetts gave us marriage in 2003.
So yes, the decision was wise. Measured. It gave gays and lesbians in New Jersey access to the full rights they are entitled to, whatever that package of rights is called by legislators. I am thrilled—absolutely thrilled—that New Jersey is joining Connecticut and Vermont in giving all of its citizens the perks of marriage, including survivors benefits under workman’s compensation laws, the ability to not testify at a spouse’s criminal trial and tuition assistance.
But.
Equal-marriage activists are right when they say there is something special about the word “marriage.”
It may seem like semantics. I myself thought that semantics was all it was, until I went up to Massachusetts a few weekends ago to play football and spend some time with Janna and Carrie, and Michelle and Heather (I need to see Amy and Beth on my next trip—sorry, guys).
I know many, many long-term lesbian couples in Chicago and New York. They own houses and condos, they have children and pets and car payments and gardens and holidays with the in-laws. They are as committed as my married friends.
I myself was in a partnership for seven years that both of us considered a marriage (this was before legal marriage was even a pipe dream). We had a ceremony; we received gifts. We presented ourselves to new acquaintances as till-death-did-we-part. Certainly, that was our intention, if not the eventual reality.
So I know that mere words—“marriage” or “civil unions” or “domestic partnership”—do not have the power to put a relationship together or take it apart.
But there’s something special about the lesbian couples who are legally married, a striking difference between them and my partnered friends. There’s an ease about them. A security. A relaxed sense of entitlement when dealing with officials, contractors, lawyers, employers. Marriage gives them personal and social standing that being partnered simply doesn’t.
The words matter.
Not just to them. The words matter to their friends and neighbors and family members. Straight people understand about marriage. They understand what kind of commitment it is. They intuitively get the words wife, husband. They don’t have to wonder after a year if the married couple is still together—they can assume they are, or else expect to commiserate over the news of divorce. They don’t have to stumble over words, don’t have to wonder if they say “girlfriend” or “significant other” or “partner” or what.
When faced with the words “married couple,” straight people know how the couple should be treated, and they treat them accordingly. When they don’t treat them accordingly, it is clear to everyone that they are discriminating.
Marriage is special. It just is. It is one of the marks of adulthood in our society, the term we use to describe the crucible that creates new families.
New Jersey isn’t ready for marriage yet. Nor, obviously, is most of the country. If civil unions are what we can get right now, then civil unions are what we should continue to fight for, what we should agree to when compromise is necessary—as it inevitably is.
So it is civil unions for now. But let’s not forget that we’re aiming for what Janna and Carrie, Michelle and Heather, and Amy and Beth have already.
We want marriage.