California Supreme Court decision on gay marriage

I've been involved in the gay marriage issue for a long time. As a member of the Pittsburgh Friends Meeting (Quakers) back in the early 1990's, the issue was one of the central questions of the meeting at the time. I won't go in to details (it took several years to get to a place where everyone felt comfortable. And explaining the Quaker method of making decisons would be a book all to itself.), but it finally culminated in re-writing the book that Meeting used for Meetings for Marriage. I was asked to work with the group of Friends re-writing the book. I can't tell you how honored I felt, since these were all people I greatly admired.

But getting TO that point was long and laborous, not to mention necessary. From a Quaker perspective, a decision can't be made unless there is not one single person in the Meeting who would stand opposed to that decision. As I'm sure everyone has seen for themselves over the last 5 or 6 years, marriage is something that many people have strong feelings about. Changing the institution riles some to the point of being irrational - on ALL sides of the issue. And if it took this long in a Quaker Meeting - individually some of the most liberal people you will find - imagine how long it will take the rest of the country! Change will come, but it will come slowly.

That being said, the CA decision is a big step forward. Especially because what they based their decision on was equal protection. They didn't proscribe a particular remedy, only that the remedy the legislature comes up with must treat both heterosexual and homosexual couples equally. It is entirely possible (and recommended, from my perspective) that the CA legislature will decide to call all committed relationships that have been legally sanctioned "civil unions" and let churches decide for themselves whether or when to call a couple's union a "marriage."

Readers of this blog may have gathered for themselves the level of commitment I have with my partner, since I refer to him as "husband". And, living in Ohio, we live in a state that has discrimination written into its constituion, when it comes to same-sex marriage. We don't feel this discrimination on an everyday basis, of course. If we did, why would we stay? But there are real ramifications of not being able to get married, and we have both felt them in the past.

Both of us have had other partners before entering this relationship. And both of us had that partner die. In my case, because my first partner wasn't out, I had to pay his estate back for the down payment for the house we had just bought together. I had to pay this back, without his income to help pay the expenses of owning a home (and his income was twice what mine was). I was working and going to school, living in a house I couldn't afford and trying desperately not to go bankrupt and lose the house. I managed, barely, but it took me 11 years to dig out of that financial mess. A mess that a married straight couple wouldn't have had to worry about, because current marriage laws protect them.

My husband, on the other hand, has not one picture of his late partner - a man he spent 10 years of his life with. His parents demanded all of his belongings after he died, because after all, why would he want them? It never crossed their minds, I'm sure.

So I guess I've seen both sides of the issue - people of all kinds who support same sex marriage and people of all kinds who don't. The time will come when this won't be an issue - either for government or for religions - but we aren't there yet. Honestly, I doubt that I will live long enough to see it. I'm not saying that because I'm pessimistic, but because I've seen how long real, lasting change can take. The thing to focus on though, is that things ARE changing for the better.