The heart of the debate over gay marriage is the distinction between the civil and religious definitions of the institution. Aren’t people’s religious objections beside the point? The state is a civil, licensing authority. Instead of letting same-sex couples get married, we allow them to have diet-marriage, more widely known as civil unions. In 1954, Brown vs. the Board of Education showed the American public that separate but equal institutions didn’t work for race. It doesn’t work for sexual orientation, either.
On Aug. 30, Judge Robert Hanson turned down Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage. On the following day, Hanson’s decision was appealed. This immediately halted the distribution of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The issue of gay marriage in Iowa is now in the hands of their Supreme Court.
Same-sex couple Tim McQuillan and Sean Fritz, two Iowa University students, completed the process of getting a marriage license minutes before they stopped being issued. This couple made the history books, but it’s unclear if their marriage will be recognized by Iowa in the future.
“Objections to gay marriage relate to religion, we’re looking at the wrong text. Instead of the Bible, we should be looking at the Constitution,” said Guilford Professor Kathy Tritschler, who teaches human sexuality. She is baffled by the debate regarding same-sex marriage.
Tritschler isn’t the only one baffled. “I’m sure that gay marriage will become legal in my lifetime,” said junior Joe Pelcher, president of Guilford PRIDE, “but the cultural pendulum is hard to predict. Some people think that marriage is a bad institution. They’re questioning its existence for both gay and straight people.”
Opponents of gay marriage are targeting same-sex couples for threatening the institution. This issue is a hot debate in the United States, but same-sex marriage can be found in parts of Europe, South Africa, and Canada. On Aug. 18, Scott Brison became the first member of the Canadian Parliament to get a same-sex marriage.
The slow recognition of gay marriage’s legitimacy around the world is a step in the right direction. Why can’t the United States be next in line? Massachusetts has legalized gay marriage, and nothing bad has happened.
“I don’t think gay marriage will be legal until we break away from the definition that defines marriage as between a man and a woman,” Said Pelcher. “Right now, I don’t think America knows a definition.”
The institution of marriage is being used to shadow the underlying issue of what happened in Iowa. This isn’t about marriage; it’s about gay people having full and equal rights in our society. This can’t happen until discrimination ends. The push for gay rights is the new Civil Rights Movement, and it will not be stopped.