Marriage is not a country club

Earlier this month, we witnessed a historic election.

Not only did we elect the first black president of the United States, but several states made important decisions related to their domestic agenda. One in particular is California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as being only between a man and a woman.

David House wrote to the Indiana Daily Student last week to defend Proposition 8. As a gender studies class, we are writing in response both to Mr. House and about the issue more broadly. The class has varying opinions, but we all want to address Prop 8 as an issue that violates basic human rights.

Indeed, fear-based concerns about what might happen should gay marriage laws pass – such as those luridly imagined by David House in his letter to the editor last week – work to justify homophobia and oppression. Personal beliefs concerning homosexuality should not deny rights of equal opportunity. In a nation that believes in the First Amendment – freedom of speech – we should also uphold that just because a person disagrees with or does not support homosexuality does not give that person the authority to call others abnormal or immoral.

Further, academic and scientific studies – almost 21 over the last decade – conclude that children of gay parents are stable and healthy. These studies found no significant differences between traditional nuclear families (a mom, a dad, a dog and a white picket fence) and those that had more non-conventional families, beliefs and upbringings.

It’s not the number of parents, their sexuality or gender that matters – it is the quality and longevity of parenting offered by the primary caregiver.

The ideal marriage/family type must be fluid and allow for individuality and diversity. We teach our children that they are special and that no one else is like them, yet we fail to practice what we preach.

Civil unions are not enough. They do not provide homosexual couples with the same legal or social rights as married couples. Indeed, the symbolic discrepancy insinuates that one (heterosexual marriage) is better than the other (civil union) and heterosexuals have and deserve a higher status than homosexuals. This is the same logic that fueled the Jim Crow era of “separate but equal.”

As one further complication, the wording on Prop 8 is highly confusing. A “yes” vote on Prop 8 essentially states that one does not agree with gay marriage. A “no” vote means that yes, one does agree with gay marriage. If no, vote yes. You’re confused, right? So were many Californians. Because of this, we cannot really see the recent passage of Proposition 8 as a fair indicator of a popular mandate against gay marriage.

We all grew up in the same America, yet we do not all have the same concept of marriage. Legislation needs to find social change, not follow it.

Marriage is not a country club, where an elite group gets to decide who can be a member.

Therefore, we ask our readers to consider that in a democratic country, we need to be open to difference and support laws that protect human rights for all.