Discussing Same-sex Marriage

From The San Diego Union Tribune Discussing same-sex marriage September 14, 2008

Supporters and opponents of Proposition 8 on the November ballot, which would amend the state Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, sat down recently with the editorial board of the UnionTribune. Below is an edited transcript of that conversation:

YES ON 8 Ron Prentice, chairman of the executive committee of the coalition backing Proposition 8. Jennifer Kearns, communications director of the campaign. Jennifer Roback Morse, supporting the proposition as a private citizen.

NO ON 8 Dale Kelly Bankhead, statewide campaign manager of the No on 8 effort. Barbara Cox, a professor at California Western School of Law. Harry Mathis, opposing the measure as a private citizen. Delores Jacobs, chief executive officer of the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender Community Center.

Why don't we ask each side to state your case? PRENTICE: We believe the amendment is necessary because it follows thousands of years of the historical purpose for marriage, and it more recently follows Proposition 22 and the will of the people. So what is best for society is the ideal of placing a mom and a dad in a home with children, and what's best for children is that they have a mother and a father, both. But this wouldn't prevent gay adoptions, if that's your concern. PRENTICE: That's correct, but we're looking to maintain the historical definition of marriage for society. OK, why should the voters defeat the proposition? BANKHEAD: Proposition 8 would eliminate the fundamental rights of same-sex couples to marry. And California should not amend its constitution to single out one group of people, for the first time in our state's history, to take away a fundamental right from that group. These same-sex couples are members of our community. They're our friends, our family, maybe our co-workers, firefighters,

nurses, etc., and shouldn't be treated differently. Domestic partnership is not the same as marriage. Proposition 8 has nothing to do with children. This literally is taking away a right that does now exist in the state of California of gay couples to marry. MORSE: That's true, but that right was created by the state Supreme Court. Our view is that the domestic partnership legislation that went through in the early part of the 2000s was something that the citizens of California regarded as a reasonable compromise that gave all of the tangible benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples. They didn't see that as a stepping stone to yet a further move to really redefine the institution of marriage. And so we view the series of lawsuits that were brought by the gay and lesbian community as a breach of faith with the California voters. Is it not the case that a gay couple, unless they are married, cannot file a joint tax return and receive the tax benefits that basically go to married couples? MORSE: That's federal. PRENTICE: At the state level, everything available to married couples has been made available to domestic partnerships. Do you agree with that? BANKHEAD: In the ruling, the court identified nine specific differences between domestic partnership and marriage. Can you delineate some of the nine? BANKHEAD: Domestic partners are required to live together. Married people are not. You can have a confidential marriage. You cannot have a confidential domestic partnership. Some kinds of benefits, if they're controlled by ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act), are not available to domestic partners, where they are available to married people. COX: I have one comment, which is the notion that it's somehow a breach of good faith. You know, the Legislature has twice adopted marriage for same-sex couples in California, and those were legislators who were elected by people since 2000. Obviously, those legislators, representing the people of California, adopted legislation through the normal process. We now have gay marriage in California. Have your worst fears been realized? I mean, society hasn't come crashing down. PRENTICE: We've already addressed the issue of children, and what's best for them. The second issue is, what's the will of the people. And what are the rights of parents? It's all about parent rights. It's all about what is best for the child as identified by the parent, not by the public government system. MATHIS: I hear this discussion about deciding what's best for everybody. I'm sort of in an interesting situation, where my wife and I have been married for 46 years. We produced two daughters. One daughter is in a stable, loving relationship with her husband for 11 years. They presented us with three beautiful grandchildren. My other daughter is a lesbian. She's been in a loving, stable relationship with her partner for 16 years, and they've presented us with two little grandsons, and I've got to tell you, the grandsons, the two boys from each of the two families, are

close together in age. They love each other. They play together. Nobody asks, “Do you have two mothers, two fathers, or what do you have, a father and a mother?” It doesn't make any difference to them. Gay couples are parents, too. And they have to be in a position to decide what's best for their children. Is there scientific data, one way or another, regarding the impact on children of samesex parents? JACOBS: There are probably about 10 surveys that are focused and that follow the scientific requirements. And the data is pretty clear that if people are raised in a loving family, they're in good shape. That's the thing that's most important. KEARNS: There actually have not been any third-party, unbiased studies. The data they're referencing is actually produced by advocacy organizations. And then speaking of what the honorable Mr. Mathis said, about systems that work, we have one of the most important systems that works in the state of California, and that is our elections process. In the year 2000, millions of Californians went to vote for Proposition 22. And millions of people spoke on that. They spoke overwhelmingly, with more than 61 percent of the votes. Certainly that race is a bit closer these days than it was eight years ago, but the fact remains that to tell Californians that in essence your vote doesn't count and four people, four activist judges up in San Francisco, can throw out the vote of millions of people, I think is sending a very dangerous message about our elections process. BANKHEAD: Let's be very clear. There are thousands of children who are being raised in households that are headed by same-sex couples. Proposition 8 would not change that. The question is, can their parents get married or not? MORSE: There is evidence that says that father absence is a very significant factor in children's lives. We know that father absence produces or is highly correlated with violent activity in boys, gang activity, and early sexual activity for girls. So we see that the absence of the father is something different from the absence of the mother. And, to answer your earlier question, no, civilization has not come to an end since the end of May, and we never expected that it would come crashing down within six weeks. We're looking down the road at the long-term consequences, because what we believe is happening here is that the Supreme Court is indirectly, but unmistakably, saying that mothers and fathers are completely interchangeable, that gender is irrelevant to parenting, that gender is not a relevant category at all for marriage or parenting. And that's the point under dispute. That Supreme Court ruling was about the right of gay couples to get married. It wasn't about parenting, it wasn't about mothers and fathers. MORSE: But it's changing the definition of marriage. You're saying that marriage is no longer an institution that is fundamentally about bringing the genders together to create a child, and then attaching those children to those people, to their biological parents. Now marriage is something different. Now marriage is about the love relationship between the adults, and the children are coming along secondarily. Hasn't marriage always been available for couples who don't have children, for 65year-olds who want to get married? MORSE: Yes, It's quite true that not every married couple has children. But every child has parents. And every child is entitled to a relationship with both of their parents, and no child is in a position to protect that right on their own. Adult society has to create institutions to do that.

COX: When they were arguing on keeping marriage as between a man and a woman, they did not even try to make the argument of procreation, because they recognize that California allows samesex couples to have children and to adopt children. They recognized that procreation would not work as an argument in front of the court, and so they simply did not even raise it. If we have the initiative process in California, and something goes on the ballot and becomes law, it is subject to judicial review, just as if it came from the Legislature. Why is it that in your model you would side-step judicial review? KEARNS: We're not here today to defend the ballot initiative process. That's a process that's been around since the early days of California. You're right, the Supreme Court does do that on occasion. This case is different because the activist judges in San Francisco not only overturned it, they actually took a pen and wrote through the law and rewrote the definition of marriage. To my knowledge, that's not happened before. They didn't just have judicial review, they didn't just make a decision and overturn it. They actually struck through and rewrote the law. BANKHEAD: We're talking about the nature of our system. Marriage is a fundamental right. And in that way it is like freedom of religion, free speech. Within our system, which includes these checks and balances, those are rights that are considered special. The step the court took was to acknowledge and recognize that right. What Proposition 8 is about is eliminating fundamental rights for one group of citizens. In fact, there is precedent. The marriage laws were rewritten back in the '40s, when the ban against interracial marriage was eliminated by the courts. It's very similar. That was race, this is sexual orientation. KEARNS: I wanted to state for the record that Pastor Miles McPherson from the Rock Church was planning to be with us here today. He was held over at the Republican National Convention. So, if I could just take the liberty for two seconds and speak for Pastor Miles. His position, as an AfricanAmerican, is that African-Americans don't take kindly to having their issues compared to this issue. Miles has said he doesn't have a choice to be black. So there's some resentment in the AfricanAmerican community for the comparison between the two, and we think it's fundamentally just a completely unrelated argument. BANKHEAD: Just wanted to note that the California NAACP urges a No vote on Proposition 8. Clearly it's an issue about fundamental rights. And, in addition, I just wanted to make sure I heard correctly. The assertion is that sexual orientation is a choice. And of course we would disagree with that, and there's strong evidence to the effect that isn't true. Let's take a few minutes to sum up. BANKHEAD: This is relatively simple. This is about the fundamental right to marry. Proposition 8 would eliminate that right for one group. For the first time in this state's history, a fundamental right would be taken away from a group, and that's just wrong. Government should not be telling longterm, committed couples whether or not they can get married. And over here? MORSE: The difference between interracial marriage and same-sex marriage is just this: Race is not relevant to marriage. We believe gender is relevant to marriage. The second point is that we do believe that gender is relevant to children, and that something is being denied to children. For the state to take the position that mothers and fathers are interchangeable will affect the whole of society.