Strike down domestic partnerships

(Note: I am behind on posting my newspaper column here. Here is my column from August 6th, the week that Doyle's domestic partner registry went into effect.)


Publication:Waukesha Freeman (Conley); Date:Aug 6, 2009; Section:Opinion; Page Number:10A

Strike down domestic partnerships

(James Wigderson is a blogger publishing at http://wigdersonlibrarypub.blogspot.com and a Waukesha resident. His column runs Thursdays in The Freeman.)


This week, Wisconsin’s 72 counties began the process of registering same-sex couples as part of a new domestic partnership registry. Wisconsin Family Action is suing to stop the registry, stating that the registry is prohibited by a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

They have a point. The amendment states, “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”

At issue is whether the domestic partner registry is “substantially similar” to marriage. Looking at the criteria used to qualify for the new registry, it would be hard to argue otherwise. After all, the criteria are taken directly from those used for marriage.

Each of them must be 18 years or older, no closer in family relations than second cousins, share or intend to share the same residence, and not be married or in another domestic partnership. Even the prohibitions on too-close family relations and bigamy are preserved.

We can debate the benefits that are granted to same-sex couples under this new law. We can argue whether they are achievable through private contracts or separate enabling legislation. We can even question the wisdom of granting some of the benefits during an economic recession, when the granting of those benefits may result in additional costs on the state and private employers.

That is not what this debate is really about. It is about an attempt to force the state’s, and thereby society’s, recognition and approval of same-sex relationships.

This has been the goal since author and gay activist Andrew Sullivan suggested legalizing gay marriage in 1989 in an essay in The New Republic. He wrote, “Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extractyourself-from commitment to another human being.”

Fine, but what of the cost to society when a pillar of the social structure is rendered meaningless? While blogger Zach Wisniewski is surely correct in noting that the “institution of traditional marriage as we know it (defined as being between a man and a woman) didn’t come to an end” since the registry began Monday, marriage as an institution has been weakened and there will be a long-term cost.

Defenders of gay marriage and civil unions like to point out the high rates of adultery and divorce as evidence that marriage is already losing its special significance. To them I would ask, if a tree is being cut down, would you save it by setting it on fire? Of course not, nor should we continue to enact the means of diminishing the meaning of marriage.

We should also point out that, until recently, divorce carried with it a substantial social stigma, and adultery still carries some social penalty. There is a visceral response that broken marriages are not in our culture’s best interests. This is reinforced by our knowledge of the actuarial tables regarding the relative impoverishment of women and children involved in divorce. While there are individual cases of success, the breakdown of the family is a leading cause of social ruin.

Proponents of the civil unions are crying foul at Wisconsin Family Action’s lawsuit claiming supporters of the amendment to ban gay marriage claimed it would not ban civil unions. True, provided those unions are not set up to be substantially similar to marriage, as the new law clearly is.

Despite some recent setbacks, support for the definition of traditional marriage continues to have broad support in our society. President Obama’s opposition to gay marriage has been often stated. African-Americans and Hispanics joined with traditional conservative constituencies to support a ban in California. And here in Wisconsin, nearly 60 percent of the voters supported the amendment even as the Democratic Party made gains across the state that year.

We should continue in the spirit of that bipartisan, cross-racial consensus to defend and even strengthen the institution of marriage.

And in the interest of defending our state constitution, the courts should strike down this domestic partner registry.

JAMES WIGDERSON

Andrew Sullivan, Conspiracy Theorist

Jonathan Last at Galley Slaves has been following The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan and his Palin Derangement Syndrome. Sullivan may have been muzzled by The Atlantic briefly before stepping back from his wild conspiracy Palin-pregnancy accusations.

But even I couldn't believe this piece of derangement and paranoia,

Bill Kristol on Sarah Palin. All he writes about in this piece of propaganda is electoral strategy and the people he hates in the media. In a week, he hasn't said a word about Sarah Palin's foreign policy views. I know she's being safely indoctrinated by Joe Lieberman and AIPAC as we speak but the fact that Kristol, like the rest of us, has not yet been able to point to a single view of hers on foreign policy in her entire life, is eloquent enough. (emphasis added)

Hey Andrew, hate the Jews much?

Ht: Jonah Goldberg

"Don't be such a lesbian"

Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan appearing on Tim Russert's program on MSNBC:

As the transcript at Media Matters indicates, Hitchens told Sullivan (who is gay), "Don't be such a lesbian. Get on with it."

Sullivan doesn't exactly look put out by his friend's comment, and later responds on his blog to the criticism of Hitchens, "Some people really need to get a sense of humor."

A commenter at Ann Althouse's blog claims,

Hitchens has a gay sensibility and that is a term that some gays say to others at times when they act like Sullivan was acting in that clip.

Another one responded,

Obviously, lesbians are heavy on the foreplay, oils...baths...whereas a good gay man (titus?) has fast dirty sex and gets it over with. Hitch was just asking him to "hurry it up" with his point.

Since I don't have the required "gay sensibility" (Dave in SF will even vouch for my dislike of Andrew Lloyd Weber), I cannot say one way or the other, except to note that Sullivan obviously got the joke whatever its point or comedic value.

Of course, I doubt Media Matters would have even noticed Hitchens' joke if Hitchens didn't talk about Hillary Clinton later in the same interview:

"I just think that if she knew how it made her look, sort of alternately soppy and bitchy, she'd stop it. But she can't help herself, can she? She just can't."

Is that Hitchens' way of saying Hillary Clinton should stop behaving like a gay caricature?