Civil unions do not equal gay marriage.

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Yesterday, Barack Obama posted an Open Letter to the LGBT community titled ‘Equality is a Moral Imperative’. (To read the full text, go here. ) This letter is nothing short of monumental; prior this declaration from Obama, only Dennis Kucinich trumpeted the plight of the LGBT community in presidential primary discourse. (Beyond the subtext of primary season, only Vice President Al Gore and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold have demanded full equality, including gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage, for LGBT Americans on the national scene.)

Needless to say, I applaud Barack Obama for having the courage to recognize publicly that LGBT Americans are treated as second-class citizens and for his hopeful indictment against this antiquated practice in our society. However –

there is one serious shortcoming in Obama’s message of equality.

Three months ago, as I researched the three leading Democratic candidates’ positions on LGBT issues, it saddened me to discover that not one of them supports gay marriage. All three of them — Clinton, Edwards, and Obama –present nearly identical laundry lists of what they’ll do for LGBT Americans. They all say they’ll repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. They all say they’ll repeal DOMA (legislation that became the red carpet for the Religious Right in their Crusade to institute a federal marriage amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman during the 2004 and 2006 election cycles). They all say they will sign into law ENDA and the Matthew Shepard Act to protect LGBT Americans in their professional, public, and private lives. They all say they support a complete implementation of rights, privileges & protections for same-sex couples via the legalization of Civil Unions. But not one of them promises full marriage equality.

Disappointed and dismayed that these candidates felt they could create an institution for the gays called Civil Unions and call it even, I wrote to all three candidates seeking further explanation for such a flippantly-issued, heavy-handed insult. Here is the email I sent to Barack Obama.

Dear Senator Obama,
As a gay American, I am well-versed in all the candidates’ positions on equal rights for LGBT individuals and same-sex couples. While I appreciate that you attempt to advocate for my community by supporting full civil unions that would afford LGBT citizens the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual citizens, I struggle to embrace your candidacy because of the following statement on your Human Rights Campaign questionnaire: “I do not support gay marriage. Marriage has religious and social connotations, and I consider marriage to be between a man and a woman.” Do you mean to suggest, Senator Obama, that LGBT Americans are non-religious or, if religious, somehow unworthy of the same integrated civil and religious blessing of their unions? Do you mean to suggest that LGBT citizens reside in some alternative, parallel society in which the customs of the mainstream are not appealing or meaningful to them? Do you mean to suggest that the traditional link between civil marriage licenses and religious ceremony is not rooted in archaic law that even the simplest mind would spot as a tangled violation of the separation of church and state? Do you mean to suggest that LGBT Americans should continue to fit their hopes and realities into the small box given to them by heterosexual culture? Do you mean to suggest that the institution of marriage itself, as it applies to every tax-paying, law-abiding citizen in this country, is such an immovable fixture that it will never change in tandem with the changes of the people in this great nation, that while slaves are emancipated, women earn the right to vote, divorce rates continue to climb, and the composition of the American family continues to diversify, marriage in the traditional sense will remain static? Your support of civil unions, coupled with your opposition to same-sex marriage and belief that “marriage” is reserved for a man and a woman, perpetuates the separateness of the LGBT community from what is normal in our society. To me, it rings too loudly as a reissue of ‘separate but equal’.
Signed, Erika in Wisconsin

Reading this, you may wonder why I decided to throw all of my weight to Obama. The answer comes from his book The Audacity of Hope. In a chapter on faith, he writes:

“I was reminded that no matter how much Christians who oppose homosexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgment inflicts pain on good people–people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ’s message than those who condemn them. And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided …I must admit that I may have been infected with society’s prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus’ call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history” (Obama, p. 223).

This confession that something tugs at his heart tells me that he is capable of tremendous empathy, that he is humbled by that which he does not understand, and that he knows that he has much to learn about what it means to be LGBT and American. These things, of course, contrast greatly with Clinton’s “you’ll get rights, but on the heterosexual timeline” and Edwards’ “I’m not there yet” messages to the LGBT community.

Obama is the best candidate for LGBT Americans because the voice he gives to our cause is not his voice, but ours. He does not dictate when or how we’ll have rights. Rather, he declares that we will have rights–period.

Without a doubt, Obama’s open letter is a step in the right direction. What I implore all of you to realize, though, is that this step does not constitute the whole long march to equality.

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Filed under LGBT, Politics, equality, gay, marriage, obama