ChangeThis is an interesting project that seeks to change the tone and terms of debate by using a hybrid mix of blogging, "ideavirus" marketing, and conventional publishing to address important issues. More here.
Armed Liberal has written on the topic of gay marriage before. In Why I Support Gay Marriage, and Why I Will Never Be Angry At Those Who Do Not he recounts the story of a terminally ill gay friend whose estate was stolen from him, and explains his position on the issue. When ChangeThis approached us about hosting a manifesto as part of their big debut, and offered to send us a manifesto covering the benefits that heterosexual couples receive and same-sex couples do not, it seemed like a natural fit.
Whether one is for gay marriage, against it, or in favour of civil unions as a solution, a number of Evan Wolfson's points deserve a hearing. For instance:
"By getting married, John and Rosa gained access to critical legal protections and benefits for couples and their children that provided for them in their time of need. Married couples are entitled to literally hundreds of rights and protections that permeate their financial relationship, both in extraordinary circumstances such as the one mentioned above, or in everyday matters, like simply renting a car.(1)
A 1996 government study found that there are at least 1,049 such protections, rights, and responsibilities that come with marriage under federal law alone. These protections include access to health care and medical decision making for a partner and children, parenting and immigration rights, inheritance, taxation, Social Security and other government benefits, rules for ending a relationship while protecting both parties and the ability to pool resources to buy or transfer property without adverse tax consequences...."
(fn1) John, Rosa, Juan, and Ryan are representative of the experiences that real-life people, gay and non-gay, have had in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. For true and detailed stories of the hardships and discrimination experienced by gay 9/11 survivors, see http://www.lambdalegal.org.
I have some issues with the way this "manifesto" was executed, but before I go into those it's worth noting some of the ways in which the legal state of marriage improves the situation of committed couples:
MARRIAGE MAKES LIFE TOGETHER MORE AFFORDABLE
Marriage makes almost every aspect of a relationship less expensive. Without money, a lawyer or any forethought, married couples receive the benefits of a complex set of legal rules that create default choices most couples would select anyway. Thus:
- Spouses are allowed to make life-saving decisions for each other without drafting powers of attorney or other complicated legal documents;
- Spouses presumptively inherit each other's estates without the need for intricate wills;
- Spouses may cohabitate in public housing units;
- Divorce laws protect both members of the relationship and minimize the power of one partner to keep the other in a situation of domestic violence;
- The spouse of a U.S. citizen may obtain residency in the United States without a long legal battle;
- Married people may adopt the children of their spouses easily and cheaply;
- Dependent health benefits are tax-free for a married couple, whereas an unmarried couple is taxed;
- By filing jointly, married couples in which one partner has a much higher income pay significantly less tax than similarly situated unmarried couples.
In addition to important tax benefits, other governmentally provided rights and privileges are simply unavailable to same-sex couples because they are unable to marry, disproportionately impacting the poor. These include:
HEALTHCARE AVAILABLE TO MARRIED COUPLES: Allowing same-sex couples to marry would extend Medicare and Medicaid spousal benefits and would allow for the tax-free provision of benefits by an employer to the same-sex partner of an employee;
HOUSING BENEFITS: Same-sex couples do not receive the protections of joint rental leases with automatic renewal rights. In highly competitive public housing slots, families can lose their homes.
IMMIGRATION BENEFITS: A foreign-born national has a presumptive right to a green card when married to an American citizen or legal permanent resident. The spouse may then obtain a work permit and eventually become a U.S. citizen. Spouses of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents also face a far shorter waiting period. These spousal rights even trump the United States' ban on immigration for HIV+ individuals. Same-sex partners are denied the family respect that otherwise governs immigration law.
SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS: No spousal benefits, including survivor benefits and disability benefits, are available to same-sex couples.
Evan Wolfson is Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, and has been heavily involved in the gay marriage issue for a number of years. He recently published a book called "Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry." The complete manifesto is available in PDF format (350k) on ChangeThis.com
This enumeration of the current gaps for same-sex couples is a worthwhile thing, and allows the debate about same-sex couples and rights to proceed on a different and better footing. That said, I have some serious quibbles with Wolfson's document.
First of all, it isn't a manifesto. A manifesto is a general statement of belief, of principle. Eric Raymond's excellent Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (which ChangeThis will also be releasing) is a manifesto. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a manifesto, speaking at a high level about observed truths and the author's perceptions of a deeper reality that lies beyond the specifics of any one company, polis, or policy.
A proper manifesto would list the substantive rights and benefits desired, and affirm their benefits for all. It would state its key articles of belief boldly without reference to current actors in political debate, and leave room for people to discuss how to get there. Wolfson could have laid out the above gaps, then issued a proper manifesto that set forth clear statements of belief and principle, addressed the spiritual and societal issues around the state of family and marriage, and called for us all to be a part of building a bigger, better future.
He did not.
Instead, he offers us a garden variety polemic that takes a specific position on a specific political debate. It's a "manifesto" that never seriously addresses the notion of marriage as something beyond a contractual convenience. A "manifesto" that doesn't even begin to deal with the other side's questions or objections, including concerns that what he asks for may lead to government interference in religious practices. A "manifesto" that dismisses the policy of civil unions as inadequate in one line, without a jot of discussion as to why this might be so. His "manifesto" has no depth, no soul.
I've seen Christian ministers on the other side of this debate proposing to address the decline of marriage's relevance and the concerns re: churches being legally forced to marry gay couples by saying: let's take religion out of the marriage game altogether. Now there's a bold and interesting position - one that thinks in broader terms and raises provocative ideas, one worthy of a manifesto. Too bad we couldn't get something at a similar level here.
Issue-based hack pieces are a dime a dozen in the blogosphere. Too many more of these and ChangeThis will be just one more boring partisan site with guest bloggers. They can do better than that - and need to, given their vision.
Fortunately, they have other manifestos up for your consideration. Go have a look.
Meanwhile, if someone out there wants to pen a quality manifesto on gay marriage, we have a Guest Blog space waiting for you right here. Evan Wolfson's contribution may have made the cut at ChangeThis, but it doesn't make ours.
Joe, check your last link.
I will say this: ChangeThis will fail.
The first reason is the PDFs.
The other reasons are for what you have touched on in this comment.
I second Praktike's remark about PDFs. They're one of the most inaccessible, unfriendly, and proprietary formats you can package information in. They are used, typically, by organizations that care more about preserving the look and presentation of their information than about people actually being able to access it easily and put it to use, or who aren't aware of how sluggish, unintuitive, and crash-prone Acrobat is.
Ahem. Pardon me, I have a deep and abiding hate-on for Adobe software.
.pdf is a rather pain in the butt file format, but you do not have to use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them. Ghostview and its derivatives work fine. For that matter there are ways to use ghostscript to make .pdf files without using Adobe Acrobat at all.
Such things are useful to those of us who refuse to use software from Microsoft.
You’ve convinced me! Let’s take away all those undeserved benefits for marriage. Why should singles or those living in “sin” tolerate such discrimination? Why should working single people pay for the health benefits of non-working spouses or significant “others”?
Many entitlements have been granted based on an outdated model family consisting of an employed father, a house-tending and child-rearing mother, and children. Now that families and marriage have changed those entitlements should be removed.
If we want to encourage stable families with children to ensure a future for our nation then let’s directly increase the tax benefits for having children. No more free rides for married couples that choose not to have children. If a homosexual couple has a child they should be entitled to the same benefits.
As for inheritance, significant “other” hospital visits, power of attorney, etc. the laws should be more flexible not just for homosexual couples but for any people that want to grant legal rights to whomever they please.
If it is not politically feasible to remove the existing marriage entitlements, then I as a single person don’t see why I should support yet another identity group that wants special treatment.
I have sympathy for homosexuals that want to be married because of their religious views or as a sign of personal commitment. I have none for adults who aren’t raising children but who want privileges that were granted to encourage healthy families. (Homosexual couples that are raising children should be granted these rights.)
One has to as a far more basic question: why should government have any role in this matter to begin with? Adults should be free to enter the sorts of contracts that they want to; and the government's role should merely exist to enforce said contracts.
No-fault divorce (violation of contract) hurts hetero marriage more than gay marriage.
But civil union is better than stealing the "marriage" word.
Most benefits should be redirected at those couples actively raising children.
The purpose of gay marriage is to put Christian believers in jail, like in Sweden (Ake Green). Under hate speech laws when a Christian calls homosexual activity sinful, evil, "a cancerous tumor on society".
Hate speech laws need to be eliminated; crimes, from hate or otherwise, need to be better punished.