How gay marriage benefits everyone. (a guest post by Jenn.)

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A note from Erika: As we often do, Jenn and I spent Friday night together in our pajamas, winding down from life’s hectic weekly agenda. Naturally, we spent some time dissecting Prop 8, what it means for us and everyone else, gay and straight. It was while looking at the ceiling, wondering into the warm, dry air of our apartment, that Jenn shared her idea for a new movement toward equality. I was so impressed by her level thinking, that I asked her to share it with you here, in the first ever guest post to appear on Be gay about it. Enjoy.

 

I can’t stop thinking about the passage of gay marriage bans this week in Florida, Arizona, and, especially, California. I’m tired of being on the losing side of these arguments. Nearly everyone I know supports equal rights, yet these amendments continue to pass. I’m beginning to think The Other Side is doing something right, and Our Side is missing a big opportunity.

 

The Other Side is extremely outspoken—in their ads, in their churches, on their talk shows, in their flyers—about the evils of gay marriage.

 

It will destroy the institution of traditional marriage.

If we allow homosexuals to marry, what next?  Can I marry my dog?  Can I have three wives?

It is an amoral sin, punishable in Hell.

If gays can marry, they’ll teach our kindergarteners in school that girls marry girls and boys marry boys, and then who knows what ideas our children will get?

Gay marriage is bad.

Gay marriage is bad.

Gay marriage is bad.

 

I don’t believe for a second that every congregant and radio listener nods blindly to these messages and pulls the “yes” lever to ban gay marriage without further thought.  People are inherently decent, and most don’t instinctively want to cause another to suffer.  They’ve been drilled that Gay Marriage is Bad, so they turn to Our Side in an effort to weigh their options.

 

Enter Our Side’s argument so far:

 

Love is love.

Equality for everyone.

Don’t discriminate.

 

So, the people weigh the two sides.

 

Anti-gay argument: Gay marriage is bad.

vs.

Pro-equality rebuttal: Nuh-uh.

 

I’m tired of being on the side with the lame argument.  I’m tired of being on the defensive, trying to convince people that The Other Side is wrong, that they’re just trying to scare you, really, it’s okay, love is never wrong, now let’s go hug some trees! Our Side needs to go on the offensive. We need to lay out why gay marriage benefits everyone, not just gay people.

 

Gay marriage is good, and we can prove it.

 

1) The wedding industry is an obvious boon to the economy. Erika and I consider the commitment ceremony we had last year average in its extravagance, and it topped out at about $20,000. In the four months that gay marriage was legal in California (July thru October), 18,000 gay and lesbian couples were married.  Multiply each wedding by our $20,000 standard (which may be a low estimate given couples like Ellen and Portia), and the retail economy enjoyed a $360 million windfall—in one state.  In four months.

 

2) Fully 33% of gay youth will attempt suicide. Suicide attempts among gay teens are four times that of heterosexual youth, and the reason is obvious. They feel marginalized, ostracized, weird, disgusting, dirty – in short, they feel better off dead than being who they are.  I guarantee you that for every gay teen who succeeds in his/her suicide attempt, they have devastated the heterosexual friends and family members who knew and loved them. Allowing gay marriage sends the signal that gay couples are an equal part of our society. With legalized gay marriage, maybe more teens will live to feel this for themselves.

 

 

 

3) The Commonwealth of Massachusetts enjoys the lowest divorce rate in the U.S.  Incidentally (and perhaps not coincidentally), Massachusetts is now one of only two states in the union to allow gay marriage. The argument that gay marriage would destroy “traditional” marriage holds no water. Gay marriage benefits everyone because it appears to lower the divorce rate, not raise it.

 

 

 

4) A common privilege of marriage is shared health insurance. For some couples, it’s a deciding factor in whether or not to get hitched; simply put, no marriage, no insurance. If gay partners marry and begin to share health insurance, the number of uninsured or underinsured persons will decrease, which will, in turn, lower premiums for –say it with me now — everyone.

So far we’ve laid out four reasons why gay marriage benefits everyone in society. Still, The Other Side is unconvinced. Their counter is predictable:

Gay marriage is still bad.

It’s a sin.

It says so in the Bible.

Winning this moral argument is like molding a statue out of egg yolk—slippery and, ultimately, unsuccessful. Yet Our Side neglects to change the ingredient. Morality isn’t just about Leviticus 8:13 (which, contextually, isn’t even about gay people, by the way). Morality is about poverty, and care for children, and taking care of our seniors.

 

With that in mind, here are some more reasons why gay marriage benefits everyone:

 

5) When a spouse dies, his or her pension and Social Security are passed along to the widow or widower. When half of an unmarried couple passes, the partner receives — nothing. His/her income drops instantly from double to single, less if they are retired. If a gay couple is allowed to marry, on the other hand, they would be automatically eligible to inherit their partner’s pension and Social Security at the time of their death. This is now one less person who’s living on a sparse or non-existent income, one less person living in potential poverty, as too many of our seniors live. And a lower poverty rate benefits everyone in health insurance premiums, lower state government aid, etc..

6) I, like many married and unmarried adults, love children and plan to raise them someday. I have not yet welcomed children into my family for one simple reason: as a single person, I could not afford  to foster, adopt, or inseminate a child. (As a gay person, I was not interested in bearing one.) Unfortunately, although we are married in our hearts, Erika and I are still two single people, according to state and federal law.  If we were allowed to marry legally, our joint income tax and joint custody status would allow us, financially and legally, to foster or adopt children. Each child we adopt would no longer be a ward of the state or inhabiting the foster care system. Both of these programs are state-funded with tax dollars that come from everyone, gay and straight. Simply put, if the door were opened to marriage so that more couples to foster or adopt children, the tax burden would be reduced for everyone.

7) Laws such as alimony and child support are in place to protect spouses & children in cases of separation or divorce. If a couple cannot marry in the first place, a partner and/or children could very well be left unprotected without benefit of alimony or child support in cases of separation, which could then very well end up on the taxpayer dime. Laws for married couples seeking legal divorces are in place to protect individuals and children, but they help no one if those individuals are not allowed to marry, like the thousands of gay and lesbian couples currently raising children together.

8) In support of the gay marriage ban (Prop 8) in California, churches and individual donors put forth  nearly $23 million dollars to pass it. What other causes could have benefited from those funds? If gay marriage were allowed, those millions of dollars could’ve been redirected toward feeding the poor, rebuilding schools, providing jobs, insuring children. It goes the other way, too—if gay rights organizations like the Human Rights Campaign do not need to fund the fight for marriage equality, they are able to invest more funds in the economy, which benefits all people, not just gay people.

For too long, The Other Side has made their religious argument against gay marriage and Our Side has allowed the debate to stay there. I think I speak for most gay people when I say that we are not fighting to force religions to marry us. We are fighting for civil marriages. Every argument I listed above is an argument for civil marriage and, while religion maintains a foothold in some aspects of our government, churches and synagogues do not pay the healthcare bills of the uninsured. While religious entities provide food and clothing on occasion to those living in poverty, they do not pay them an equivalent to government aid so that they may buy other necessities, pay rent, or support their loved ones.Similarly, the church down the street does not financially support our foster and ready-to-adopt children from Birth to 18, nor are suicidal teens saved by faith.

If a person believes gay marriage goes “against their religion” and is “immoral”, I don’t care much.  I counter that gay marriage is a real and ready solution to some of the major economic challenges we face today, and there’s nothing immoral about that.

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