Go ask Alice: Marriage will follow civil unions

March 31, 2004

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

And who, Lewis Carroll might wonder, was master in this week's battle of words over gay "marriage" vs. "civil unions"?

In this often-surreal, "Looking Glass" debate, the winners were the losers and the losers - while perhaps not yet winners - are now well positioned to become so.

At first glance, it might appear that gay marriage opponents got their way. After all, the Legislature on Monday narrowly approved an amendment to the state Constitution that bans gay marriage. "Only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage," reads the text.

But the next sentence then goes on to set up "civil unions" which, it turns out, shall provide “entirely the same benefits, protections, rights, privileges and obligations that are afforded to persons married under the law of the commonwealth.”

That sounds an awful lot like marriage. Indeed, gay marriage opponents - ranging from the Leviticus crowd (18:22-23: Homosexuality "is an abomination") to the Catholic Church (gays are "objectively disordered") - are appalled. For them, this agonizing debate hasn't been some silly exercise in dictionary definitions. It has been over whether society should recognize, validate and give state sanction to gay relationships. And that, clearly, is what civil unions do.

This is not to say gay proponents are happy. Marriage may only be a word, they contend, but denying gays that word makes them second class. It's the "separate but equal" argument: Creating two systems of law for what are essentially the same relationships is, at its root, somehow a statement that one of those relationships is inferior.

The fact is, the amendment satisfies neither side. Far from taking a clear stand, it offers up a logical muddle. It's easy to blame the Legislature for this, of course, saying it's just up to its old tricks, using word games and clever dodges to try to offer something to everyone.

I don't think that's right, though. In truth, senators and representatives supporting the amendment were simply reflecting the views of those they represent. Like the amendment, many people are of two minds: They really don't know what they think.

And for gay proponents, that's not a bad place to be.

Consider the history of gay Americans. Up until the 1960s, every state made homosexual acts a crime (Illinois was the first to decriminalize such acts in 1962). The federal government refused to hire gays, so too did most states. Psychiatrists regarded homosexuality as a mental illness. Those who didn't keep their lives secret were routinely harassed and jailed.

The year 1969 marked the line of demarcation between then and now. On June 27, New York police raided a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Instead of being cowed, however, gays resisted. That resistance in turn spawned the gay rights movement and led to a rapid series of changes. Gays began to mobilize politically. They started to talk about gay pride instead of gay shame. They secured legal protections. Private companies and some cities and towns began extending domestic partnership benefits. Ellen DeGeneres, "Queer Eye" and "Six Feet Under" started portraying gays as regular folks (with perhaps a better fashion sense) living normal lives (to the extent that anything on TV is normal). In 35 years, gays went from pariahs to part of the mainstream.

Yet, while there is growing acceptance of gays, that hardly means they are fully accepted. Many straights know and socialize with gays but are still not comfortable with what they do. They support rights for same-sex couples but recoil at the word "marriage." They are, in short, ambivalent. And the proposed amendment reflects that ambivalence.

Still, the difference between marriage and civil unions is tissue- thin, a final, small hurdle for gays to overcome. And that certainly can happen.

At the earliest, the amendment can't become law until 2006, when it goes before voters. Before then, in 2005, it needs yet another vote of the Legislature.

In the meantime, gays in Massachusetts will be getting married (or, at worst, "civil-unioned"). We'll read their announcements on the wedding pages; we'll see them in our communities; their kids will go to school with ours.

Eventually, we'll begin to notice that their relationships are much like everyone else's.

Eventually, it will be hard not to conclude, as the March Hare said to Alice, "You should say what you mean."

Call it a civil union or not, it's really marriage.

Talk back to Tom Keane at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.