Positive Liberty

Yes, I suppose I do have a sour disposition at times. Not always.

I was being far too cynical when I characterized the Massachusetts legislators as “mostly indifferent.” A lot of them have offered some remarkable testimony of how same-sex marriage is an idea whose time has finally come…

Faced with the reality of same-sex couples living together with dignity and legal equality, they have found that there is nothing to fear. It wasn’t indifference at all, as the later news stories have convinced me.

I particularly liked this piece, from a senator who changed her mind and ended up supporting legal equality:

We have had a full and fair public discussion and debate, and today we must settle this matter so we can move on to other issues of equal and, perhaps, even greater import to our state. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that the finality of judgments is the concession we make to the shortness of life.

I know from listening to my constituents, since I first became Senator this year that this vote, the vote I take today, is the right vote for the people I serve. I know from listening to my constituents, since I first became Senator this year that this vote, the vote I take today, is the right vote for the people I serve. I have been most impressed by the number of individuals who have called me and asked me to change my vote because they have changed their minds. One grandmother told me she had changed her mind and wanted me to change my vote in case one of her grandchildren grew up to be gay or lesbian. She did not want any of her grandchildren to be denied the right to marry the person they love. This is exactly the legacy we will leave to generations beyond us, and the example we can set for the nation and, I daresay the world, which is certainly paying attention to what we do and say here today.

And consider this piece about legislators who also changed their minds:

Representative Richard J. Ross, a Republican from Wrentham, had a revelation Wednesday afternoon after meeting with a gay Republican who presented him with this challenge: As director of his family’s funeral home, Ross had surely treated every family the same, no matter what their race, religion, or sexual orientation. So why would he do anything else in his other job, as a lawmaker?

…Senator Michael W. Morrissey, a Democrat from Quincy, said he ignored the lobbyists and the power brokers who wanted to talk to him and sought counsel from his wife, his family, his oldest friends, and a few constituents. He made up his mind moments before walking into the House chamber yesterday.

“People’s ability to be happy is fundamental,” he said. “To pass judgment on that, in the end, I found hard to do.”

…Representative Geraldo Alicea, a Democrat from Charlton, is a freshman who once promised to vote in favor of the amendment. But after he was elected, he said, “I thought it was best to be open-minded.”

He spent many nights over the past five months meeting with gay and straight constituents. They included a couple who had been together for 28 years, and who, before they were married, had not been able to see each other at the hospital when one of them was seriously ill.

This is it — this is how equality wins. Mildred Loving’s wonderful statement on the fortieth anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia is also worth remembering, as Brayton has already noted:

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

And just because I can be such a cynic, here’s Andrew Sullivan from earlier today. He’s still completely right:

The GOP has clearly been on the other side of this issue, for the most part, for years now. But the basic argument for gay equality these past two decades has not been “left”. It’s been a classic integrationist argument: let us serve openly in the military; let us embrace the responsibility of family; leave us alone. In some ways, as I have quixotically been arguing for too long, the gay movement since the 1980s has been pretty conservative. (And Kinsley got me to write the first serious conservative argument for gay marriage back in 1989.) For example: Can you think what people would call a mobilization of African-Americans to tackle HIV without government assistance - a mobilization that helped arrest the HIV epidemic in a matter of years? They’d call it a paragon of self-help and individual responsibility. But we’re gay, and so we don’t qualify for conservative support, help, or encouragement, let alone what we deserve, which is admiration ad respect. One day, the conservative movement will realize what a terrible mistake they have made, and how only callousness and prejudice can explain it. One day.

Scott and I were among the very first same-sex couples to get married in North America, in Ontario, on July 18, 2003. It was months before all the fuss in Massachusetts. And while many other couples have taken much longer to decide, the choice was easy for us. Years before, we’d promised one another that as soon as any jurisdiction anywhere in the world allowed two U.S. citizens to get married, we would go. So, roughly a month after the Ontario decision, and just days after I returned from a long research trip in Europe, there we were.

We made our promise for so many reasons. We loved each other, and we still do, and this was the most important thing. We worried, too, about what might happen if one of us were hospitalized or dead; we wanted to have children, and a legally recognized marriage would make adoption that much easier. None of that has changed yet, but if I want it to change, I have to think that this is the way it will.

So… I’ll be honest and admit that there was a political motive, albeit one that pushed us in a direction we would have taken in any case: We wanted to be on record. We wanted to be an example. We wanted to be part of a bold new experiment in living, and a reproach to anyone who doubts that two men can build a decent and honorable life together.

Of course there was a sense of adventure to getting married: the long engagement, reading the newspapers, poring over the legal requirements in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. (The latter, by the way, is to be avoided; the PaCS, a French version of the domestic partnership, offers most of the responsibilities of marriage and very few of the benefits. I wouldn’t get one even if Scott and I both lived there permanently.)

I remember wondering how the border guard would react when we said we were going to Canada to get married. We thought of maybe just saying that we were tourists, but in the end we told the full, complete truth. “Congratulations,” he replied.

I can’t wait to tell my grandkids. I expect it to be one of the greatest pleasures of growing old. I’ll show them the blog, too — the things I got right, the things I got wrong. The records I’ve kept of all the discussions I’ve had with people of so many different views on this issue. What a journey it’s been.

I just have one hope right now: Let Maryland be next. The Maryland Court of Appeals decision could come any day now.

It’s time. We’ve waited long enough.

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