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R: PHX, S: 1IN10, D: 01/01/1999, B: David Valdes Greenwood, A: >,

Family values

Winning the right to marry is long-term civil-rights struggle

by David Valdes Greenwood

GETTING TO 'I DO'

When historians look back at this decade, an interesting pattern will emerge. In lawsuits or legislation with serious ramifications for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities in New England -- and often beyond -- the name Mary L. Bonauto will be found in the court documents as counsel or friend of the court. While her face may not have the luminous cachet of '90s celebrity activists like Chastity Bono, her imprint on our actual social standing is indelible.

Bonauto is the director of the Civil Rights Project of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD). Based in Boston, GLAD has done "impact" litigation and education throughout New England since 1978. Through its work in the region -- which mostly involves civil-rights cases -- GLAD is the primary legal voice in the region for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and people with HIV/AIDS.

To see evidence of Bonauto's handiwork, one only needs to scan news accounts from the past few years. Publications from the Boston Globe to U.S. News & World Report have repeatedly sought out Bonauto to comment on an array of cases covering the spectrum of challenges facing our community: anti-gay censorship in Merrimack, New Hampshire; the Maine Won't Discriminate campaign; the court appeal of a New Bedford couple denied the right to apply for a joint loan; same-sex discrimination in public-sex crackdowns in Providence; parental visitation rights for same-sex partners in Vermont; same-sex sexual harassment in Massachusetts; sex-offender registry laws; domestic partnership; and gay and lesbian adoption.

Currently, Bonauto is working on Vermont's same-sex marriage case. She has been involved in education efforts in the state for several years and now serves as co-counsel for Baker v. State of Vermont, the case before the state supreme court. One in Ten recently spoke with Bonauto.

Q: What do you see on the horizon in 1999 with regard to gay marriage?

A: What I see ahead in 1999 is the same thing I see for the indefinite future. We are in a long-term civil-rights struggle. Marriage is an important part of securing full equality and justice under the law. I hope we can get a boost from the courts in Vermont and Hawaii this year. But win or lose, there is a great deal we can all be doing to help people understand how our families are systematically disadvantaged by not even having access to civil marriage.

After legislative hearings on anti-marriage bills in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine in 1997, I heard lots of feedback from legislators to the effect of, "I didn't realize you people had such problems." Marriage has focused attention on our families in a very positive way. I should add that the legislative backlash isn't over, either. New England may not have seen the end of anti-marriage bills, and, of course, preparations are under way to deal with the California anti-marriage ballot measure set for 2000.

Q: In Hawaii, domestic-partner measures were passed in the wake of the anti-marriage legislation. How do you feel about domestic-partnership laws as an alternative to -- or in addition to -- gay-marriage legislation?

A: Both marriage and domestic partnership are important, and both support the legitimacy of our families as families, but neither is a substitute for the other. We need to pursue both.

Q: How are they similar or dissimilar in value and practicality?

A: Domestic-partnership registries aside, for the most part, domestic partnership plays out as an issue of equal pay for equal work on the job. We think that's crucial, which is why, as just one example, GLAD asked to (and was allowed to) join a lawsuit in which Boston was sued by a right-wing group over [the city's] domestic-partnership executive order.

We also know that if we win marriage, not everyone will marry, just as not all nongay people marry, and we want the principle of equal pay for equal work enshrined regardless of marital status. Unlike domestic partnership, marriage is a gateway to hundreds of automatic legal protections, rights, and obligations. Marriage makes you automatic next of kin for your partner. Powers of attorney and guardianship designations are important, but we have seen them disregarded by biological family members and courts alike, and most people don't even have them. While we won a case in 1997 that required a court and biological family to respect the wishes of a man who had appointed his two business associates as his guardians, not every case turns out that way. There are lots of horror stories. In New Hampshire, we had to tell a woman who had been with her now-deceased partner for 15 years that there was no way she could get out of paying inheritance taxes on her partner's share of their home. Marriage provides unparalleled legal security and peace of mind.

Q: How do you feel about questions of whether this is the right time or the right battle to be fighting? I've seen anti-marriage editorials by gay writers.

A: Fine. The gay community is vibrant and full of opinions and different perspectives. I don't expect us all to agree about this any more than about any other issue. When the three couples in Hawaii won a preliminary ruling from the Hawaii Supreme Court, it was not hard to see that we now had a historic opportunity. We are fighting for the right to make an important and personal choice. Right now, that choice is categorically denied to us no matter how much a couple may want to be married, no matter how long they have been together, and no matter how much they need the protections of marriage. In the same vein, we fight against discrimination in the military not so that anyone will be forced to serve, but so that the choice lies with the individual, not the state.

As I alluded to earlier, the threat that we will win marriage has forced people to focus on our families in a very real way. Many who oppose us on marriage are now with us on domestic partnership, or favor changing other laws to include protections for our families.

Q: What is going on with the Vermont case?

A: The state supreme court heard oral arguments on November 18, and we hope to have a decision within the year. Anti-gay organizations from all over the country submitted briefs to the court against us, but we had supporters, too, including lots of local support from religious groups and child-welfare experts.

The argument was the first time a state supreme court anywhere actually heard and analyzed a state's justifications for keeping marriage a male-female institution. The Vermont attorney general defended mainly by relying on procreation arguments, but the justices seemed skeptical about that. One justice even asked whether the era has passed in which one could say that the purpose of marriage is bearing children. I'm not in the prediction business; I'm just pleased that they gave both sides a full and fair hearing.

Q: Why haven't we seen more state cases like those in Vermont and Hawaii?

A: Because cases aren't the only way to secure lasting civil-rights protections. Good lawsuits have to be preceded, or at least accompanied, by public education, which helps people understand why you need and deserve the rights we're seeking in lawsuits. Education matters. And by education, I mean thinking about all the ways you can talk to people about why you believe we need, deserve, and want the freedom to choose marriage, even if you would not marry yourself. Two years before this lawsuit was filed, individual Vermonters who are part of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force were traversing the state and talking to people in homemakers' associations and rotary clubs and other organizations and putting a face on the "gay marriage" issue.

In addition, Vermont has a solid bedrock of protections in place for gay people and families, which most states don't have. Vermont was the first state whose supreme court ruled that children can have two legal parents of the same sex. It has domestic-partner benefits for state employees, as well as an anti-discrimination law for employment, a hate-crime law, and no sodomy law.

Q: You talk about the importance of education to change society, but it seems like civil-rights issues often get decided in the courts first and then become accepted in the culture.

A: There's an important truth in that. Courts play a critical role in setting principles and continually updating (we hope) the promises of equality set out long ago in the state and federal constitutions. At the same time, without enough popular support, court decisions can be undone, as we just saw when the Alaska electorate amended its constitution to forbid [gay] marriage in response to a favorable trial-court decision.

Q: What is your wish list for gays and lesbians (in terms of their actions) for the coming year on this issue?

A: I hope that people, whether coupled or not, will search their hearts to see if they want to live in a world where the choice to marry is available, whether they fall in love with a man or a woman. I hope people will think about the heartaches and disasters that have befallen those who lost their loved ones without any access to the automatic legal protections of marriage. I hope people will find a way to translate those disasters into the not-so-glamorous work of discussions about why the freedom to marry is a basic human right and an important personal choice that belongs to the couple and not the state.

David Valdes Greenwood is a frequent contributor to One in Ten.

 









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