The Supremes

The Iowa Supreme Court today struck down a ban on gay marriages in the state, finding that the legislative ban violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. According to a spokesman for Governor Jon Huntsman, he “supports equal rights for all people” but doesn’t support extending the right (or rite) of marriage to gay couples. Apparently, some people are more equal than others.

Just about every person who will be running for elected office in the next 4 years anywhere is calling for a constitutional amendment in Iowa that circumvents the high court’s decision, and some of them don’t even live in Iowa. The 4 year period is important, because that’s the minimum length of time it takes to amend the constitution in Iowa. 2 consecutive biennial legislatures must ratify the amendment before it is even put to a public vote.

A lot can happen in 4 years. I didn’t believe 4 years ago, for instance, that a black man would or could be elected President in my lifetime, and certainly not by such a wide margin. 9.51%, to be exact. But the number of bigots shrinks with each generation as our country becomes more multi-cultural.

Granted, the bigots that we still harbor have become increasingly vocal, most likely because they now comprise the minority and feel threatened. Plus, they need scapegoats to explain what’s wrong in their lives. And some of them simply don’t like change of any sort.

Many of them have shifted from racial hatred to demonizing homosexuals because, once again, being on the fringe, they are increasingly in the minority who believe it's any of their business. Without any evidence to support it other than “I believe”, they seek to relegate gay people to a less-than-equal status. No marriage. No adoption. No recognition of a family structure.

Apparently, recognizing “equal” as equal will cause the sky to implode on us and lead to the death of the American family as a social structure. Never mind that we have millions of people living as families without any recognition or rights that come with the status of a family. They are simply a “household”.

We don’t have kids, and neither of us wants them, but we’re still a family, just the two of us. With two cats. Granted, I’d never marry Shannon (strictly for financial reasons), but I’d like the opportunity and right to do so, should I change my mind.

It’s a matter of principle: “equal” should mean equal, whether the concept is convenient or not.

Time will tell the mood in 4 years. If the sky doesn’t fall, some people will realize that other family models have had little to no impact on the traditional family. More people will know people in non-traditional families. They will have friends that would be adversely affected by a change in the law.

Most people think I’m a pessimist, but I’m really the eternal optimist. I believe in the future, the seemingly impossible and likely improbable until the future gets here, and then I go on believing that the future is infinitely large. We will get to that shining city on a hill.

Whether it’s in my lifetime or not, I don’t know. I believe it will be. If life out-runs me, I know that equality is inevitable and will come when I’m gone.

Iowa may be the turning point (as it often in Presidential elections), and the case could very well end up in the US Supreme Court. If it doesn’t, one will soon.

I want to live to see it. Not because I intend to exercise that hypothetical right, but because I want the official recognition of my relationship. That it’s as valid and real as a heterosexual one.

Not that I need that approval in my own mind. It’s just galling to have it officially denied.

I live in a (very) liberal city where no one really cares about who I go to bed with at night or what his or her gender might be. When I was in the real estate business over a decade ago, I occasionally had clients ask to be shown property in the “gay neighborhood”. I had to tell them that we didn’t have one. The gay community here has never had a need to establish or flee to a pink ghetto.

We just live next door to everybody else, all across the city and the suburbs. Our gay neighborhood takes up about 5 counties.

But even in this very liberal, gay-friendly city, if I have to take time off work to take care of Shannon’s health needs, I have to take vacation time, while people who can get married can take it as sick time. Believe me, sitting up all night with someone who is going through psychotic hallucinations and then taking time to make sure he’s getting better is no vacation. Nor does driving him 90 miles away for surgery that requires a driver to get home.

Those inequities exist in a city that is largely gay friendly. But even the friendly folks don’t get the bigger picture: not officially recognizing same-sex relationships amounts to labeling some as less equal than others.

Given the hot button issue that it is, I don’t expect to see much change any time soon. Very few legislators in most states will risk supporting any legislation that recognizes same-sex relationships, muchless condones them. It would be the political equivalent of pardoning Osama bin’Laden.

And yet still I have faith. 4 years is a lifetime in politics. If Chicken Little doesn’t turn out to be right, people might just quit caring about the hypothetical threat to the American family and who other people sleep with every night after night.

If a black man can be elected President, anything’s possible. Maybe sooner than I think.

I'm stilling holding out.