Same-Sex Marriage Joins Political Fray Gay Rights Issue Election-Year Fodder
A legal argument over same-sex marriage is turning into a political war.
Last Saturday, five Republican candidates in the Iowa presidential caucuses either signed or delivered letters pledging to oppose legalization of same-sex marriages.
And President Clinton opposes same-sex marriage, the White House announced when questioned on the issue this week.
In response, more than 200 gay and lesbian activist groups have stepped up a nationwide campaign called the National Freedom to Marry Coalition, hoping to heighten public awareness to same-sex marriage.
The fight combines moral issues with such practical questions as whether partners should be entitled to Social Security, health insurance, and other normal spousal benefits.
Same-sex couples already have gained some important ground in American society.
A number of American cities now allow gay couples to register as domestic partners, giving them rights to assume a partner’s lease on an apartment or to have hospital visitation rights. San Francisco recently OK’d nonbinding public civil ceremonies for gays.
Also, many companies and cities now extend benefits to gay and lesbian partners of employees. Apple, Time Warner, Levi Straus and Disney are among a growing list.
Clearly, there are enormous implications to granting such rights to same-sex couples. This debate has been sparked by a landmark suit now being considered by courts in Hawaii that could determine once and for all whether state laws denying same-sex couples the right to marry are constitutional.
A Hawaiian court first turned heads across the nation in 1993 when it ruled that unless a state could prove it had a “compelling interest” in denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, it should lift the ban.
The next turn in the legal controversy is expected this summer when another Hawaiian court may rule on the case; Hawaii’s Supreme Court could issue a final ruling there in 1997.
The threat of the Hawaiian courts’ allowing these marriages has galvanized religious conservatives who are attempting to persuade state legislatures across the nation to pass laws explicitly rejecting same-sex marriage.
And those efforts are prompting counterattacks from gay and lesbian rights activists.
“This is one of the major civil and human rights issues of our time, and all we ask is that the American people get a fair hearing of it,” said Evan Wolfson, a co-counsel in the Hawaii case and director of the Marriage Project for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York.
“What’s being decided is whether to continue denying a significant group of human beings access to one of the central social and legal institutions of this society,” he said.
But Wolfson and other supporters face daunting opposition from conservative Christian and family values groups. They say granting legal marriage rights to gays and lesbians would destroy the American family.
“Same-sex marriages are an affront to the moral values that the majority of American people believe in,” said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.
Some on the other side of the argument say they think it ironic that the very same people who champion family values protest the move by gays and lesbians to form legally recognized, stable families.
xxxx At issue The full legal rights and privileges of marriage would allow gay and lesbian couples access to such benefits as: Social Security and Medicare benefits of partners Joint insurance policies for health, home and cars Family leave to care for a sick partner or child Inheritance rights Joint parental custody.