Family Values

By Dan Kirk on 06/02/2009 @ 01:26 PM

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“It sucks they don’t want gay people to get married.”

These were the words my nephew spoke when he heard about the California Supreme Court’s decision on Proposition 8. He’d come home from school and saw the news on the television. Then he followed up his statement with a question.

“Why don’t they want gay people to get married?”

Fast forward to a few days later and a friend forwards me an email that brings my nephew’s words back to my thoughts. The email was from the folks at the Family Research Council, a right-wing Christian organization that seems to focus a lot of time fighting against the LGBT community.

In their email, the FRC Action committee evoked the image of vicious attacks on a ‘Christian young lady in a beauty pageant’, frenzied ‘radicals’ on the Iowa supreme courts, and even more frenzied radicals in the Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire legislatures pushing ‘counterfeit’ marriages. Then they get to the focus of their fundraising email, the defense of DOMA. In the email, they answer my nephew’s question far better than I did.

“If DOMA is abolished or weakened and counterfeit marriage is spread nationally by radical judges, then:

• Children in elementary school will be required to learn that homosexual marriage and same-sex behavior are normal and good… and that their parents or pastors are bigots if they oppose it. It’s happening where counterfeit marriage is legal.
• Religious charities that oppose homosexual marriage could be forced to close—it happened to Catholic Charities’ adoption services in Massachusetts because they refused to hand over innocent orphans to “married” same-sex couples.

Their goal is to silence the moral voices of America. Our social fabric will unravel.

That’s the quote from their email. Want to know something interesting? Until the Christian Right put Proposition 8 on the ballot, we’d never really discussed gay marriage with my nephew, even though he’s lived with us off and on for the last several years. When we did talk about the issue, he got a confused look on his face and asked another of his wonderful questions.

“What’s wrong with gay people getting married?”

For him, and for children like him all over this country, the issue of gay marriage isn’t about some strangers, it’s about his family. It’s about the two people in his life who he sees as a safe harbor, a steady home, and loving adults who are there when he needs them. He can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want his Uncle Dan and Uncle Robert to get married.

Folks like Tony Perkins and the FRC want people to believe that it is NOT okay to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heaven help us, transgendered. They would prefer that everyone be taught that people like us are evil incarnate and have no rights whatsoever. Unfortunately for Mr. Perkins and people like him, young people like my nephew are learning something other than what the FRC wants them to learn.

They are beginning to worry that DOMA could fall. Sure, they’ve gotten a handful of victories in recent days, but they’ve suffered some defeats that are pretty stunning. Certainly the fact that gay marriages are happening in Iowa really does make a difference.

Yes on Gay Marriage has focused primarily on repealing DOMA because we know, as does Tony Perkins and the FRC, that even with the amazing victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Washington D.C., and hopefully soon another victory in New York, ultimately it is the repeal of DOMA that will make the biggest difference for same-sex couples. There are now half-a-dozen states where gay marriage is legal. Several more states have Civil Unions or Domestic Partnership laws granting the same rights as marriage to same-sex couples. Thanks to DOMA, there are no same-sex couples who are able to file federal tax returns as a couple. Nor are there any same-sex couples able to pass through customs as a married couple. I could list all 1,100+ rights and responsibilities that are denied by DOMA, but I think we get the picture.

Until we get DOMA repealed, even in those states that allow same-sex couples to get married, true equality has not been achieved. DOMA is, and will continue to be the big elephant in the room, blocking us from the doorway to full equality. So, even as Tony Perkins and the FRC calls upon their bigoted supporters to stand up and be counted for supporting DOMA, I’m going to call on you to stand up and call for the repeal of DOMA.

Now is the time.

Dan Kirk has been active in the LGBT rights movement for sixteen years, starting with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debates in the early 90s. Helping to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act has become one of his highest priorities.