Each week, it seems, brings a new claim or counterclaim in the same-sex marriage debate. But what are the issues?
By SHARON TUBBS
Published August 1, 2004
[AP photo]
Ruben Israel of Los Angeles, right, confronts opponents of the same-sex marriage amendment to the Massachusetts constitution outside the statehouse in Boston in March.
[AP photo]
Oslin Galindo of Dorchester, Mass., left, and Suyeng Quant of Boston, right, express their views outside the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston.
Colin Ferguson participates in a rally June 30 at the state Capitol in Richmond, Va., denouncing the Affirmation of Marriage Act that went into effect July 1.
[AP photo]
Legislative maneuvers, protests, lawsuits, church debates and scholarly tit-for-tats over same-sex marriage are constant these days.
One week, the U.S. Senate quashes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gays from marrying. President Bush and other same-sex marriage opponents say they will try again.
The next week, two lesbians sue to have their Massachusetts marriage license recognized by other states and the federal government. Days later, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marriage Protection Act, sending it to the Senate.
Polls show most Americans are against same-sex marriage, but split on whether the Constitution should be amended to stop it.
So it's hard to tell which side is ahead.
Or to assess how the nation would change if gays were allowed to marry.
Dissenters, for instance, say legalizing same-sex marriage will open doors to polygamy. But the other side calls that a red herring.
And what about federal benefits? Congressional estimates say a post-gay-marriage nation would raise more revenue, but not everyone trusts the findings.
Experts say the same-sex marriage debate has just begun, expecting it to choke court dockets for at least a decade. The St. Petersburg Times conducted interviews and compiled arguments to assess how claims on both sides stand up.
Polygamy
Supporters of polygamy are tracking the debate closely because some think same-sex marriage clears the way for more marital freedoms. The more government moves toward sanctioning homosexual relationships, they say, the less right it has to prevent plural marriage.
Legal opinions on the theory are mixed and complex.
The idea that same-sex marriage could lead to polygamy is "not beyond the bounds of reality, although incredibly unlikely," said Michael Allen, who teaches constitutional law at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport.
But John Witte, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said polygamy would be a "natural next step in the evolution of sexual liberty."
Polygamists latched onto gay rights last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws that banned sodomy. In Lawrence vs. Texas, police responded to a reported weapons disturbance, entered a man's home in Houston and found him having sex with another man. The couple was arrested and convicted of "deviate sexual intercourse." The high court overturned the law, saying it violated due process. But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision would lead to legal challenges against bans on "bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity."
A married couple in Utah later cited Lawrence in their lawsuit challenging a ban on polygamy. Attorney John Bucher also cited Lawrence in an appeal for convicted bigamist Tom Green. Green had five wives and was convicted of bigamy and failure to pay child support in 2001. In a later trial, he was convicted of child rape because one woman was 13 when she became his "spiritual wife."
In his legal brief, Bucher told the Times that lifting bans on same-sex marriage would go further than Lawrence in advancing the argument for polygamy. The government's "foothold" on limiting marriage to one man and one woman would be severely weakened, he said.
"If one man can marry another, you need to ask then, what is it that you're doing by prohibiting one man from marrying two women?" he said. "What is the evil that you're trying to prevent?"
Witte, the Emory professor, says there is little difference between arguments for same-sex marriage and those for polygamy. Both rest with protection issues in the 14th Amendment. Both say marriage is a private matter and people should be free to wed whom they choose. One difference, Witte said, is that polygamists might make a stronger argument than homosexuals because many base their lifestyles on religious beliefs, which the Constitution also protects.
If same-sex marriage is legalized, there is no natural stopping point in redefining what is or is not acceptable, Witte said. But practically speaking, it would take much longer to legalize polygamy than gay marriage because it is more socially taboo, he said.
Mark Brown, a constitutional law expert at Capital University in Ohio, sees things differently. He said polygamists could not claim the same level of equal protection rights because they are not a "suspect" class, meaning that they don't have immutable traits, such as race or gender, that make them targets for discrimination. Some argue that homosexuals are not a suspect class, either. Brown, however, said a credible equal protection argument might be made for them.
"That's the reason I don't think polygamists would get away with trying to piggyback" on same-sex marriage.
Said Allen, the Stetson professor: "Any alteration of traditional forms of marriage would move you closer to nontraditional forms of marriage."
But courts would have a much easier time upholding bans against polygamy, using other "rational bases" to uphold the bans, he said.
Federal spending
Would payouts to same-sex spouses cripple the nation's already feeble health care and Social Security systems?
That's what some opponents have said. According to news reports, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., lamented the costs of same-sex marriage during a House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee hearing in May. He referred to an August 2003 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that said the federal government would have to spend about $1.4-billion during 10 years to extend benefits to domestic partners and retirees.
But that was before the Congressional Budget Office issued another report in June. According to this report, gay marriage would actually help the national budget. If same-sex marriages were recognized by all 50 states and the federal government, gay couples would add nearly $1-billion to America's coffers in each of the next 10 years.
The hypothetical findings came after Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, requested a budget analysis for the potential impact of same-sex marriage. Unlike the first report, this one was comprehensive. The office crunched numbers from census figures and other reports to estimate income taxes, Social Security, health care benefits and other federal programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps. The government would pay more benefits in areas such as Social Security. But those increases would be offset by gains in other areas, namely income taxes. Gay couples would likely pay more in taxes, partly because of the government's "marriage penalty," the report estimated.
Freedom to Marry, a gay rights organization based in New York, has posted the new report on its Web site. Executive director Evan Wolfson noted that many private businesses now offer benefits for gay employees and their families. The companies are not required to do so, but have opted to because "they know it's good business," Wolfson said.
"If businesses think it's good for business, why wouldn't it be good for the government?" he said.
Same-sex marriage critics dismiss the latest congressional office findings. Glenn Stanton, senior analyst for marriage at the Christian organization Focus on the Family, said he thinks the positive results were "politically motivated."
"When you read the budget, it just doesn't add up at all," Stanton said. "It's remarkable how political everything is."
Religious speech
Some religious leaders think it could become more difficult legally to preach against homosexuality if the nation were to endorse same-sex marriage as a fundamental right.
This is a hot-button issue among religious groups, although some legal experts say it's unrealistic because of First Amendment protections on free speech. Same-sex advocates say the claims are proof of irrationality within the antigay movement.
Emily Doskow edited A Legal Guide for Lesbian & Gay Couples for Nolo, a Berkeley, Calif., company that publishes self-help legal books, software, forms and a Web site. She gave this example: African-Americans gained rights during the civil rights era, but people still express racist viewpoints without fear of arrest or citation.
Howard Simon, president of the ACLU of Florida, says he is saddened by "how misled the flock may be by their clergy." He said he couldn't see a minister being sanctioned for preaching against homosexuality.
Still, the argument has spread, reaching Christian television shows and church pulpits. Major religious organizations have issued warnings, including Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family and the Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based group that has become a national leader in the fight against same-sex marriage.
Mathew Staver, the Liberty Counsel's president and general counsel, said: "I don't have any question that it would lead to infringement on free speech."
He gives examples of people who were sanctioned for denouncing homosexuality in other countries where same-sex unions and marriages are legal.
Janet M. LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America, a national religious-based policy organization, said the problem is "competing rights." The First Amendment may grant free speech, but the more acceptable homosexuality becomes, she said, the more it will compete with religious freedoms.
For instance, she said, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Boy Scouts have the right to ban homosexuals as troop leaders. But since then, a number of local governments have denied Boy Scouts access to public buildings because of that policy.
"It becomes a battle between free speech and what the court has said is a fundamental right to marry as they did in Massachusetts."
But other lawyers say the First Amendment protects anyone who speaks for or against gay marriages.
"Restrictions on speech are hard to do, even hate speech," said Allen, the Stetson professor. Ugly words can be used as long as they're not meant to provoke a violent response, he said.
Children
Among the most highly debated issues surrounding gay marriage is parenting. How are families and kids who live in same-sex households affected?
The American Psychological Association has a summary by Charlotte J. Patterson on its Web site.
The scientific evidence is clear, it says. Research during the past three decades says children raised by gay parents "have normal relationships with peers and their relationships with adults of both sexes is also satisfactory." Most of the studies have been in lesbian households. In most areas, researchers found no difference in how children perceived gender roles and no evidence that children raised by gay parents were more likely to be gay themselves, a common stereotype.
But University of Southern California sociologists Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, who examined the data in 21 previous studies - including several referenced in Patterson's research - concluded that children raised in gay households did show differences.
Stacey and Biblarz are both emphatic supporters of gay marriage. Their research, "How Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" was published in a 2001 issue of American Sociological Review.
They say children raised by gay parents were more likely to consider homosexual relationships. Still, the majority of all children identify themselves as heterosexuals, the sociologists noted. Children of gay parents were more likely to play with toys outside of their traditional gender roles and were less constrained by gender in their dress and their goals. For instance, girls raised by lesbians were more likely to want to be lawyers, doctors and astronauts. They were also more "sexually adventurous." Boys raised by lesbians, on the other hand, were more chaste than their peers in heterosexual households.
According to Stacey and Biblarz, the findings were clear from the previous studies, but dismissed by scientists overly eager to validate homosexual relationships, fearing further discrimination against gays and lesbians.
"Because antigay scholars seek evidence of harm, sympathetic researchers defensively stress its absence," the researchers wrote.
As for Stacey and Biblarz, they said some of the differences should be embraced, such as girls striving for fields traditionally relegated to men. They would also argue that there's nothing wrong with youths being open to homosexuality.
They debunk the notion that heterosexual parenting is the "gold standard." Differences, they said, don't indicate "deficits."
But people against same-sex marriage have also embraced their findings, holding them up as proof that gay parenting is not ideal for children. Articles on Web sites for the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America refer to the study.
Concerned Women's LaRue said other studies have concluded that homes with mothers and fathers are best.
"I don't care who the woman is, she can't be a good dad and that includes me," LaRue said. "The children who are in families where you've got homosexuals are going to be denied the role models they need."
Conservative columnist Mona Charen recently wrote: "Biblarz and Stacey deserve credit for their honesty. But their breezy embrace of gay parenting is highly reminiscent of the cheerful accounts offered in the 1970s for divorce and single-parent households. In those days, we were told that whatever made for a happier parent also made for a happier child. We are sadder and wiser now. The children are much sadder."
Civil rights
The idea that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, akin to African-Americans gaining the right to sit at lunch counters and to vote, is highly contentious among those for and against legalizing gay marriage.
"It gets really to the core of the promises of our nation, which is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," said Ron Schlittler, executive director for Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, or PFLAG. "It's the right to make a decision about your personal life and who you want to spend it with, that's pretty basic."
A number of civil rights leaders, including Coretta Scott King, are on his side, saying that black people should empathize with the gay rights movement and join in with their modern versions of We Shall Overcome.
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr., said the proposed Marriage Protection Act was a step backward in civil rights.
"Those of us who came through the civil rights movement saw the federal courts as a sympathetic referee. If it had not been for the federal courts, where would we be? If it had not been for the Supreme Court of 1954, there would still be legalized segregation in America. . . . To vote for this legislation would be like members of Congress trying to stand in the courthouse door, just like Gov. Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door to stop the integration of Alabama schools. Today it is gay marriage, tomorrow it will be something else."
But many are offended by the comparison with civil rights, calling it a distraction from the real issue.
"To call this a civil rights issue is disingenuous and it also demeans the civil rights struggle of African-Americans," said LaRue of Concerned Women for America. "Homosexuals have never been pushed to the back of the bus." She said race is an "immutable characteristic" that can't be changed. She believes that homosexuals can be converted.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also marched with King, was quoted in the Boston Globe and other news outlets as saying to an audience at Harvard Law School:
"The comparison with slavery is a stretch in that some slave masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution and in that they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this article. Sharon Tubbs can be reached at 727 892-2253 or tubbs@sptimes.com
