We Are Still Married

“I have overwhelming respect for the sanctity of marriage,” says Vin Scully, voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers for 62 years in today’s New York Times.  Mr. Scully was referring to the marital discord of Frank and Jamie McCourt, the gajillionaires who lost control of the Dodgers in a messy divorce.

While I have not conducted systematic research, I feel safe in saying Mr. Scully’s is one of the few statements on marriage in today’s news that is not a reaction to President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage yesterday.

Mr. Obama’s outing (so to speak) on this issue was forced by Vice President Joe Biden’s remark Sunday that he feels comfortable with same sex marriage.  Some people called it another Joe Biden gaffe, some said it was a tactical move, who knows?  Who cares?  The point is that it’s long overdue for the president to stand up and say the right thing.

Civil unions were legalized in Vermont in 2000.  It was forced on the legislature by the Vermont Supreme Court; there was huge hue and cry, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry showed up in a full-length fur cot and predicted the end of civilization.  Then- Governor Howard Dean signed the bill into law behind closed doors and allowed no photos to be taken of the historic event.  Bet he’s screaming at himself now.

Then: Nothing bad happened.  Many good things happened.  Vermont society did not fall apart, people’s marriages did not fall apart.  Children did not turn to lives of crime (at least, not in any greater numbers than usual).

Like Vin Scully, I have overwhelming respect for the sanctity of marriage.  It’s a sacred institution and I hope those engaged in it treat it with the reverence it deserves.  I don’t see where gender enters into all this.  Adrienne and I are still married; our marriage is better than ever, we’ve been to same sex weddings, those people are all still married.  (It is not easier to buy wedding presents for same sex couples than different sex couples.  Nor is it harder.)

Look, I’m divorced.  Adrienne is divorced.  Our first marriages didn’t work out.  (George W. Bush would probably say, “When they were young and foolish, they behaved in ways that were young and foolish.”)  Getting divorced from the wrong person and finding the right person was the best thing we could have done for the institution of marriage.  Our exes have remarried and I hope everyone is happier than ever.  None of this took place during the time period when men could marry men and women could marry women, so don’t blame them.

Mitt Romney calls Mr. Obama a flip flopper on same sex marriage.  He’s absolutely right.  Mr. Obama was in favor of it when he ran for the US Senate in ’96, then we was against it when he ran for president and now he’s for it again.  This time, I think it will stick.

Tuesday, voters in North Carolina voted – by a clear margin – to adopt an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.  This will not last long.  For one thing, it’s unconstitutional (14th amendment).  I know, I know, the Supreme Court as it is now constituted will not find the North Carolina amendment unconstitutional, as a majority of that court is incapable of finding a light switch in a dark room, but they are old men and soon will pass from the Earth.  I think that long before the North Carolina amendment can be litigated up the chain of courts, the voters themselves will remove it.

Easy for me to say and hard to bear for those of my fellow citizens in most states in this country who, nearly 236 years after our Declaration of Independence, are still waiting to be treated as equals.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

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