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PROP. HATE

Will SwaimWed. October 22
 

Will Swaim tries to figure out why gay marriage isn’t already destroying the totally hetero deal he has going with his wife

A few years ago, my friend Steve asked me to officiate his wedding; not a churchgoing guy, he couldn’t imagine a stranger performing this intimate and, sure, sacred act. But I wasn’t a minister. We resolved this apparently insuperable problem, not with more schooling (I got a BA from USC’s School of Religion, banging out a senior thesis on how to radicalize North American Christian churches) or the sanction of any church, temple or mosque. We solved the problem of my non-ministerial status with a computer: It turns out that, in California, you can become a minister online.

The process took less than 10 minutes: the Universal Life Church asked for my name, address and my e-mail; warned me that “Applying for ordination in the name of a fictitious person or animal, or the submission of a person’s name without his or her permission is fraud”; and reminded me that “a computer cannot ordain you. Your request must be reviewed before your ordination can be done legally. You cannot be issued a credential automatically by a computer!”

And then the Web site directed me to click on the button marked “ORDAIN ME.”

And, verily, I did.

A few months later, in summer 2002, the Rev. Will Swaim married Steve and Shawna.

In September, taking advantage of California’s change of heart vis-à-vis gay marriage, my friends David and Randy asked me to marry them at Cal State Fullerton.

On the morning of the wedding, our doorbell rang. My nine-year-old daughter called me to the front door, opened already on two obviously gay guys—I could guess by their dress, expensive haircuts and something in their physical comfort with one another, and I was certain when the blond guy asked, “Are you familiar with Proposition 8?”

Proposition 8 is on your Nov. 4 ballot, and if it passes it’ll ban gay marriage.

I redlined in my enthusiasm for their energetic work to defeat 8. “I am so on your side,” I told the two gay men. “I’m completely for gay marriage.”

And then their faces went simultaneously kind of saggy—sudden loss of all identifying characteristics except confusion, maybe—and it became clear to me that, no, maybe, these were not the men I thought they were.

The other guy—dark hair in a faux-hawk, nice shirt, Seven jeans—cleared things up for me: “No, see, we’re for Prop. 8. It’s the Defense of Marriage Act.”

I said nothing.

He continued: “We oppose gay marriage because marriage ought to be reserved for one man and one woman.”

I stopped him as gently as I could, kind of wrestling the feeling of creepiness that conservatives must get when gay men show up on their doorsteps. “I couldn’t disagree you with more,” I said. “And it’s weird you should come on this very morning”—I chuckled, attempting to help them see the irony, to build maybe a little space for our common humanity in a moment of just weird coincidence—“because, see, tonight I’m marrying two gay friends.”

They said nothing.

“So, I’m pretty firm on this,” I concluded. “I’m against Prop. 8, and really you’d just be wasting your time here.”

“Well, that’s what makes America so great,” one of them said with this just pie-eyed kind of look, like that part of his brain that pumps out 5-hydroxytryptamine was suddenly producing patriotism. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

“No,” I said—still gently, I think. “See, if I win, if Prop. 8 loses, you get to have your opinion and live your life. But if you win, see, my friends don’t get married.”

That night, I married David and Randy. On Election Day, we’ll all decide—you, me, Randy, David, the two not-so-obviously gay men on my doorstep—we’ll all decide whether they’ll be among the last.

I’m just a mail-order minister, which might be why I’m wrestling with the logic behind Proposition 8. The campaign is based on just two arguments, really: that (a) straight marriages and (b) children like mine need protection from gay marriage.

The threat is, well, inevident—on a level with weapons-of-mass-destruction that don’t really exist.

I’ve been married for 11 years. More than most straight marriages, ours ought to be really T-boned by gay marriage—given my active participation in at least one of those marriages. But it’s not. I know this sounds weird but I stood up in the George G. Golleher Alumni House on the campus of Cal State Fullerton, held the joined hands of David and Randy and I felt . . . just joy, like this sense of rightness that these two guys, loyal to one another over the course of a quarter century, were at last granted the rights my wife and I have enjoyed since 1997. And I didn’t feel the slightest bit, what, ready to leave my wife for a dude? Or another woman? Felt only that we (my wife and I) had two more allies in the struggle of all couples I know to strengthen that slender filament of romance that’s supposed to support all the other crap that comes with marriage—the fact that we’re roommates with two sometimes competing aesthetics with regard to say interior design, separate (but compelling and workable) philosophies about money/thrift/risk and childrearing, crap, as I say, which is sometimes corrosive to the intense commitment at the center of the relationship and which is sometimes almost undetectable to us as the source of our anguish in that union—sometimes but not always, thanks in part to the reminders of friends (like Randy and David) who without words but by their actions tell us that we stay married and in love for just one reason: because we said stood in front of at least one witness and said we would.

There’s only one person who threatens that marriage, and he’s not gay. He’s me.

So I’m not buying that my marriage needs protecting from anything but myself, is my point here. And on the issue of children—and their needs where the marriage of gay men and women are concerned—I went to District Weekly Child Expert Emma Swaim, my aforementioned daughter:

You know what gay marriage is, right? It’s when a boy and another boy get married. How about a girl and a girl? That’s lesbian marriage. They’re actually both called ‘gay marriage.’ Oh. So, you know that some gay people are already married. Yeah. What impact has that had on your life? [ . . . ] You understand ‘impact’? Like ‘effect’? Yes. What ‘effect’ has gay marriage had on your life. Um, nothing. Any effect on our marriage—mommy’s and mine? No. Do you think our marriage would be better if gay people couldn’t get married? No. So why do some people say that? I don’t know. Because they’re stupid. That seems a little harsh to me. Well, you asked me. You didn’t ask you. [Emma’s mother intervenes at this point to agree that maybe “stupid” is harsh.] There has to be a better reason. Because they’re jealous. Why are they jealous? Because they’re not married. What if they are married? Because it’s not in their beliefs. Isn’t belief a good reason to make a law the keeps gay people from getting married? Their beliefs? No. Adults should be able to marry whoever they want. ‘Whomever.’ Yeah. Whoever they want. The word is ‘whomever.’ Who cares. [Emma’s mother intervenes at this point to argue for greater precision in language.] What if it’s just your belief versus somebody else’s belief? Who gets to be right about gay marriage? I’d just say gay marriage is fair. What if some people say they don’t like it anyway? That’s their problem. This is America. People who don’t like gay marriage say it’s bad for children. How? That’s why I’m asking you. I’m not sure. I guess because they’re worried their children might become gay. I suppose it’s possible, but that’s not very likely. Why? Because people who like boys just like boys. Gosh. Don’t be stupid.

While earning that degree in theology, I can’t say I spent lots of time thinking about homosexuality. I was far more interested in women—women, it turns out, or rather my affection for them, proved far more dangerous to my marriageability than gay men who were, as far as matrimonial exposure goes (as my daughter says), well, whatever. But I did write an essay on the question of Biblical perspectives on homosexuality and their relationship to public policy.

Part of undergraduate education is learning to write five pages (250 words per typed, double-spaced page) where three would do; I can spare you some 1,000 words and tell you this: the parts of the Bible that proscribe homosexuality are, in fact, fairly limited. Most of your God-Hates-Fags Christian evangelicals (and supporters of Prop. 8, and the folks behind Chick Publications) will direct you to the Book of Leviticus, where, sure, after you sort through oft-ignored directions on the proper handling of sacrificial goats, “creeping things,” menstruating women and literally, like, hundreds of other dietary, clothing and weird and obscure laws (“thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed”), you will indeed find a proscription on gay sex, namely that “a man shall not lie with a man as he lies with a woman” (18:22). The punishment, Leviticus says, “is death” (20:13). My particular insight (born of a late-night conversation with a roommate struggling toward queer identity) was that a man does not lie with a man as he does with a woman (think about it), an observation professor of theology Jack Crossley called “clever” and “Talmudic” but “probably not as powerful” as my conclusion: that religion can’t be the basis of law in a secular society because the Founding Fathers, having witnessed wars of religion in the Old Country, were not eager to see full-dress reenactments in this one. In fact, vis-à-vis the First Amendment’s bright-line division of church and state, religion probably shouldn’t even be allowed (you’ll pardon the expression) a back door into the conversation about law.

And yet you’ll find that many of Prop. 8’s backers are open about the biblical basis of their arguments in support—and probably, when April 15 comes around, claim federal-exempt tax-status because they’re churches and (says the IRS code) they stay out of politics. In August, just to single out my own church, Catholic bishops endorsed Prop. 8, declaring that “same-sex unions are not the same as opposite-sex unions” and that only a relationship that can produce children should be called marriage. I’m calling my Catholic parents tonight to encourage them to get a divorce.

But a friend of mine—gay—says these arguments about the constitutionally limited role of religion aren’t likely to resonate in the white-stucco homes of suburban voters. He says the best argument against Prop. 8 is this: It’s simply too expensive. He paid Look Graphics (Long Beach) $500 for a thousand bumper stickers of his own design. Each urges the people who drive behind you to vote no on Prop. 8 to “save California $684 million”—because that’s how much one study says the state will lose in revenue from gay marriages.

I told him that that’s a little like opposing the extermination of Europe’s Jews on the basis of its impact on global warming, but he insists. “It’s got to be a pocketbook issue,” he told me.

Maybe. But I can’t shake the feeling that opposing Prop. 8 on financial grounds is a little like accepting Jesus as your personal savior out of some gambler’s calculation—not because, you know, God is good, or even because being good is better than being bad, but merely because you, personally, don’t want to run the risk of going to hell forever. Wait a minute. Let me take this call: I’m learning that that’s precisely why many Christians believe in Jesus.

So maybe my friend is right. But and if he is, then there’s also this weird possibility: If Prop. 8 passes on Nov. 4, Sacramento—that is, California Attorney General Jerry Brown—will invalidate the state’s gay marriages. In August, Brown said that won’t happen, said Proposition 8 is not retroactive. Or said he thinks it’s not: “I believe that marriages that have been entered into subsequent to the [May 15] Supreme Court opinion will be recognized by the California Supreme Court,” Brown told The San Francisco Chronicle. “I would think the court, in looking at the underlying equities, would most probably conclude that upholding the marriages performed in that interval [before Nov. 4] would be a just result.”

But read your sample ballot, and follow along with us to the part where the initiative’s supports assert that “your YES vote on Proposition 8 means that only marriage between a man and a woman will be valid or recognized in California, regardless of when or where performed.” That makes it possible that Californians will wake up Nov. 5 to an amazing public spectacle—thousands of gay people lined up for the planet’s first mass divorce, the obverse of a Rev. Sun Yung Moon mass wedding, all these people who made all these individual commitments to love, honor and cherish one another now told that there’s nothing stopping them from doing so, but we sure as shit won’t make it any easier for them. No, we’ll be telling them on Nov. 4, we prefer our gays eccentric, wearing assless-chaps and flannel shirts, cruising bars and engaging in a meth-fueled singles scene, or lonely and isolated—so much easier that way for us to complain about their unwillingness to just, like, settle down in a kind of nuclear arrangement.

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Viewing 29 Comments

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    A few questions, your most Ordainedness: Why "radicalize North American Christian churches"? Why perform wedding ceremonies for those you, assumedly, care about that have no lawful basis? How did David and Randy refer to themselves during the marriage ceremony you officiated for them? Since you are ordained as a minister in the ULC, would you say that the marriage you officiated for David and Randy constituted a religious service? Does not all codified law ultimately originate from one religious teaching or another and, if so, can we truly ever separate the two...even in rhetorical conversation? What will couples who feel they will benefit from the defeat of Prop 8 truly gain if their California marriage is not recognized equally throughout all states and, in fact, is not recognized at the federal level (they're ok as long as they remain in CA or another right-to-marry State but will they truly be co-equal with hetrosexual married couples in that regard? Would not invalidating California's existing gay marriages violate prohibitions against the passage of ex-post-facto laws?
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    I don't recall which relgious teachings lie behind the statues that govern my car's
    tail lights. Can somebody refresh my memory? It may have been covered when I
    did traffic school but I must have dozed off. There are only 613 commandments
    and it is true that I did not successfully memorize all of them in Hebrew school so
    make my life a little easier and give me the relevant passages.
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    Kelson: Are you attempting to imply that readers shouldn't ask questions of columnists? Because I kind of that thie was the entire purpose for the online format Will chose for TDW...to encourage dialog, debate and discussion.
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    THAT'S funny!
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    does any marriage performed in a church have lawful status? if you get married in a church WITHOUT a license its not legal.
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    Regarding John B's questions - The ceremony for David and Randy was simply that, a ceremony and celebration of our love. There was no religion or ju ju involved. We asked a fabulous and gifted friend who had the ability to validate a marriage license to provide over an event that consisted of readings (Walt Whitman, of course) and music. We referred to each other simply as two men who love each other, we were pronounced, "married." To deny Gay and Lesbian couples the right to marry forces us to live as second-class citizens in this country. If Prop 8 passes we will continue to fight for our rights, if it is defeated we will do our best to assist the rest of the country in acquriing full citizenship status. Vote No on 8. Randy of David and Randy.
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    Randy: Thanks for taking the time to respond. A lot of my other questions remain unanswered, however, and I hope Will finds the time to answer them.

    Please don't mistake my motivation. I happen to believe Prop 8 to be decidedly unconstitutional and have already mailed in my ballot voting against it. While I do understand your defensiveness, it is definitely not warranted, to any degree, in my case. I am not so judgmental of others. Would that others could say the same.

    But even if Prop 8 were passed it would not have the effect of "forc(ing Gays and Lesbians) to live as second-class citizens in this country." That's a bit of an overstatement. If passed, Prop 8 would have zero impact beyond the borders of the State of California...thankfully.

    Permit me to sincerely congratulate you and David on your nuptials and, if I may be so bold, may God bless both of you, AND your love AND your marriage, for all of your lives together.
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    OMG, you've just jeopardized my heterosexual marriage... :^)

    If only you'd have done it while I was married to my first wife.

    Congrats!
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    OMG that interview with Emma is presh. Simply presh.

    NO ON H8
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    John B: Thanks for your questions. Randy (of Randy and David) already answered a few; I’ll answer the others as best I can (limited time).

    Why "radicalize North American Christian churches"? Because my parents (though conservative) come from a kind of Catholic Worker (i.e., visit the sick and those in prison, comfort the elderly and poor) perspective. So I grew up believing that faith without works is dead, and etc.

    Why perform wedding ceremonies . . . that have no lawful basis?” I don’t understand the question: in California, marriage between consenting adults is legal. Even if gay marriage weren’t recognized by the state, I’d still want to help my friends (gay or straight) solemnize their relationships.

    “Does not all codified law ultimately originate from one religious teaching or another?” I guess as human society evolves, sure, you could argue that much of what we call law has been expressed in religious terms. But that wouldn’t explain why Christians (for example) observe some of those laws (homosexuality is an abomination) while ignoring others (all dietary restrictions). For the explanation of that evolution, you might have to allow that, at least since the Enlightenment, we’ve begun to acknowledge that some of the laws we expressed in religious terms (Thou shalt not murder) remain reasonable for practical (and, sure, therefore spiritual) reasons, while others (e.g., the numerous places in which the Bible actually supports slavery and just appalling bloodshed and the murder of innocents) are clearly outrages to human dignity. Make sense?

    Gay couples’ feelings vis-à-vis non-recognition in backward states? I can’t say. But I think you’ve got a great idea for a story.

    Would Yes on 8 violate “prohibitions against the passage of ex-post-facto laws?” Another great story. What do you think?
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    Very well responded, Will, Thanks!

    Radicalization:
    Ahh...I think we agree concerning the (dubious) relationship between faith and works, thanks. I guess I just never considered the concept particularly "radical". Now I get the reference.

    Lawful Basis:
    Well, several of my questions on this theme were inter-related and please understand that my sole purpose with this particular thread is to learn something. Here's the path I was following: You cite your ordination with ULC as the authority under which you perform (solemnize) weddings. California Family Code (CFC), Section 400(a) is the legal source of your authority to do so in this State ("Marriage may be solemnized by any of the following who is of
    the age of 18 years or older: {a} A priest, minister, rabbi, or authorized person of any
    religious denomination.). Here's where it gets a little technical and this is why I asked how Randy and David referred to themselves during the ceremony: CFC 420(a) states "No particular form for the ceremony of marriage is required for solemnization of the marriage, but the parties shall declare, in the physical presence of the person solemnizing the marriage and necessary witnesses, that they take each other as *husband and wife*. Again, I'm trying to learn here...perhaps this section has been somehow over-ridden or stricken or has been pre-empted by case law...but it seems to me that the letter of the law dictates that, to be lawful in California, marriages have to involve 2 people who declare that they take each other as "husband and wife". No? If this is a technicality, it seems a pretty glaring one and one that needs to be addressed by our State legislature so that it complies with current case law.

    Religion and Law:
    Yes it makes perfect sense and why it's clear to me that you truly earned that degree in theology that you mentioned early on. My point, of course, is that those who cite equal protection under the law as a basis for defeating Prop 8 are really not nearly so far removed from those who cite religious fiat and practice as a the basis for upholding Prop 8. They seem, to me, to be arguing from opposite sides of the same extremely ironic coin, as it were. This in no way resolves the argument, of course. I just happen to find it moderately amusing.

    Ex Post Facto:
    I think any attempt to invalidate marriages that are currently legal after Prop 8 passes (and I pray it does not) would be a clear violation of the Constitutional prohibition against ex-post-facto laws (US Constitution, Art. 1, Clause 3). There does exist a Supreme Court case (Calder v. Bull) that restricted the definition of ex post facto to apply to penal and criminal statutes only.

    A paper recently published by the Cato Institute, however, concluded, in part, that: "Due to the Supreme Court's error-ridden analysis in Calder v. Bull, the prohibition against ex post facto laws has been applied only to criminal laws. As an analysis of United States v. Carlton and significant policy considerations indicates, this prohibition deserves to be extended to civil laws. Retroactive laws should be permitted only if just compensation is paid to harmed individuals."

    Meanwhile a review of Federalist 44 indicates that relevant passages strongly suggest that the authors of the Federalist Papers intended the prohibition against ex post facto laws to apply to both civil and criminal laws. So I think a cogent and convincing argument on this challenge could be made in Court if necessary.
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    No on 8= No on hate.
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    Melissa: With due respect, that's a very nice slogan and sound byte but a vast oversimplification of the motivation of many who are supporting Prop 8.

    Are some proponents hateful? Certainly and sadly. Some but not, by any means, all and to paint every proponent of Prop 8 with that extremely judgmental brush is to practice the very same sort of intolerance to divergent viewpoints that you no doubt accuse them of practicing against you.

    Many people, though (and some of these are extremely dear to me) are strict Biblical constructionists who feel that our own codified laws (such as our State Constitution, for example) should much more closely reflect what they believe to be the true word of God on this topic. They are not motivated by hate to *any* degree but, rather, by a love of their God as they define Him and a desire to adhere to his Word. Some are so commited to this belief that they intend to leave the State if Prop 8 fails and I would submit that they probably should do so.

    That's really how our Republic was designed to work. The people in each State are free to craft the sort of place in which they desire to live, work and raise their families. As long as each State follows the US Constitution and any other federal laws that all States agreed to adhere to, they are otherwise free to make whatever laws they feel best suit them.

    And better still, to *NOT* make laws (like this one) that don't.
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    John: I'm really a sucker for catchy slogans. BUT and with all due respect, I don't understand for instance, why laws that don't apply to your "Biblical constructionist" friends need to "suit" them. They are free to live their lives the way they always have. I mean, it's like petitioning to demolish a person's house because it just doesn't suit you.

    So, I know it's your friends right to support prop 8 but in the end, why do they care about a harmless law that has no effect on them? I mean, everything else aside how could this possibly have any sort of impact on their life? Think about how your friends' moral obligations (?) could hurt gays who are married or plan to be.

    And if it really does for some reason bother them, I agree that they should probably move if the law passes.
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    Melissa: As mentioned, many feel strongly that the Bible represents the Word of God (on this matter and all others) and thus they desire that their State's laws remain as closely aligned with that Word as possible. Nor is this approach without precedent since the Founders themselves attempted to assure the very same thing where our US Constitution was concerned...a close alignment and agreement with Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.

    To minimize the importance of this belief to such people is, in my opinion, no more appropriate than it is to minimize the importance of the belief that same-sex couples should be able to be “married” and not simply “domestically partnered” under the laws of their State.

    The belief of each group is no less valid simply by virtue of their divergence or disagreement. The belief of one group should be considered no less important or significant than that of the other.

    Wisely, however, the Founders were not prepared to mandate their own beliefs at the federal level. They often cautioned that to diverge from these beliefs would be to risk the loss of the blessings and support of God as they defined Him, but they felt strongly that a free people *must* be guaranteed the right to worship freely, or to not worship at all if such was their choice.

    The challenge, of course, arises when we involve the “State” and, for this reason, the Founders wanted to assure, as best they could, that as a nation we did not lapse into a theocracy, wherein the “State” sponsored one particular religion that all citizens would be required to adhere to and be controlled by…thus the "religion clause" of the 1st Amendment and the basis of my personal objection to Prop 8.

    In our nation, as well as in our State, people are free to follow and to practice whatever type of faith or belief system they choose (assuming no creature is being criminally victimized, of course).

    I believe that anyone who chooses to have his or her union to another solemnized is following their faith or belief system and, thus, should be seen to be freely exercising their “religion” and it is patently *unconstitutional* to make a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Unfortunately the US Supreme Court has thus far declined to hear any challenges to US DOMA (Public Law No. 104-199, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996) and for that reason the current law of the land is that neither the federal government nor any individual State is required to respect or to honor a same-sex marriage from a State that permits them.

    Those who choose to not live in a State that permits same-sex marriage have the freedom to reside in a State that does not do so and those who choose to not live in a State that does not permit same-sex marriage are, likewise, free to live in a State that does.

    With the clear exception of the ill-considered US DOMA law, I believe this is precisely how it should be.
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    Melissa: As mentioned, many feel strongly that the Bible represents the Word of God (on this matter and all others) and thus they desire that their State's laws remain as closely aligned with that Word as possible. Nor is this approach without precedent since the Founders themselves attempted to assure the very same thing where our US Constitution was concerned...a close alignment and agreement with Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.

    To minimize the importance of this belief to such people is, in my opinion, no more appropriate than it is to minimize the importance of the belief that same-sex couples should be able to be “married” and not simply “domestically partnered” under the laws of their State.

    The belief of each group is no less valid simply by virtue of their divergence or disagreement. The belief of one group should be considered no less important or significant than that of the other.

    Wisely, however, the Founders were not prepared to mandate their own beliefs at the federal level. They often cautioned that to diverge from these beliefs would be to risk the loss of the blessings and support of God as they defined Him, but they felt strongly that a free people *must* be guaranteed the right to worship freely, or to not worship at all if such was their choice.

    The challenge, of course, arises when we involve the “State” and, for this reason, the Founders wanted to assure, as best they could, that as a nation we did not lapse into a theocracy, wherein the “State” sponsored one particular religion that all citizens would be required to adhere to and be guided by…thus the "religion clause" of the 1st Amendment and the basis of my personal objection to Prop 8.

    In our nation, as well as in our State, people are free to follow and to practice whatever type of faith or belief system, or none at all, that they choose (assuming no creature is being criminally victimized, of course).

    I believe that anyone who chooses to have his or her union to another "solemnized" is following their faith or belief system and, thus, should be seen to be freely exercising their “religion” and it is patently *unconstitutional* to make a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

    Unfortunately the US Supreme Court has thus far declined to hear any challenges to US DOMA (Public Law No. 104-199, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996) and for that reason the current law of the land is that neither the federal government nor any individual State is required to respect or to honor a same-sex marriage from another State that permits them.

    Those who choose to not live in a State that permits same-sex marriage have the freedom to reside in a State that does not do so and those who choose to not live in a State that does not permit same-sex marriage are, likewise, free to live in a State that does.

    With the clear exception of the ill-considered US DOMA law, I believe this is precisely how it should be.
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    Universal Life Church Monastery Homepage
    Friday, July 27, 2007
    Ecclesiastical Proclamation
    Universal Life Church Monastery:

    Ecclesiastical Proclamation of Canon Law All humans have an inalienable right and duty to practice their own peaceful religious traditions. However, religion should not contradict the reality of creation. "Why does God give us instincts and then set all the r