Media Studies major April Mulkern is gay. Though she is not able to legally wed, it has not stopped her from envisioning the perfect wedding. She gazed off as she described a grand affair of friends, family, merrymaking and herself transformed into the modern day Cleopatra. Her partner, she said, would be Julius Caesar. Many take for granted their right to a legal, binding marriage. Mulkern does not know if that vision will ever become reality for her, but her convictions of its necessity are strong. “The time is now for same-sex marriage. The GLBTQ community has waited long enough,” she said.
Melanie, a member of Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian organization, did not want to be identified by her last name. Melanie feels strongly that same-sex marriage is sinful. She cited Bible passages from Genesis and Leviticus to validate her beliefs.
“The Christian religion believes it’s wrong to have same sex marriage,” she said. “Being gay is an abomination. It’s a sin just like all other sins.”
These two accounts demonstrate the tension currently coursing through the nation. While the fate of same-sex marriage is uncertain, it is certain that the debates remain emotional and tumultuous.
“It’s pretty hard to argue in favor of treating one group of people different from another,” said Michelle Brodsky, coordinator of an upcoming teach-in on the subject.
The teach-in, featuring prominent lawyer Mary Bonauto, is currently in the planning process and scheduled for April 8. Bonauto successfully argued the landmark case, Goodridge v the Department of Public Health, in which the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage. She is also a resident of Portland.
Sponsored by The Center for Sexualities and Gender Diversity (formerly the GLBTQA Resource Center), the teach-in hopes to educate the community about the issues involved in the same-sex marriage debate. Topics such as the difference between civil unions and civil marriages, the history of marriage as an institution, and general civil rights issues will be addressed in some format.
The teach-in will include faculty speakers as well as a panel of representatives from varying religious organizations. Both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage will be invited to participate, said Interfaith Chaplain Andrea Thompson-McCall.
“I don’t want this teach-in to be a one-sided pro-gay marriage event,” said Assistant to the Vice President of Intercultural Development Mary Kay Kasper, who also is involved in planning the event and agreed it was important to present all perspectives to fully educate.
The teach-in will be held during USM pride week (April 5 to 9). Pride week has typically been celebrated with speakers, films and a variety of social events, but has not typically been focused around a specific issue, said Kasper.
“We’re in the midst of this huge historical moment,” said Brodsky, who likened the movement to the battle over interracial marriage and predicted that same-sex couples will also eventually gain equal rights.
“People will look back and say ‘of course, how could we have done that?'” she said. The same-sex marriage issue is being touted by many as the largest civil rights movement since the battle over segregation in the sixties.
“It’s like getting on the bus [and] not going to the back. Somebody’s just got to say no. People have to fight for their rights. It’s not going to just be given to us,” said Kasper.
The same-sex marriage issue escalated in February when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and then New Paltz, New York mayor Jason West began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of state laws defining marriage to be between a man and a woman. West has since been criminally charged for his actions and California’s judiciary has intervened and halted the marriage license distribution for same-sex couples.
Though Massachusetts’s judiciary ruled legislation must be created by May to secure same-sex marriage, there is current legislation to ban same-sex marriage but to allow civil unions.
Civil unions are no longer adequate to many same-sex couples. Though they offer the same state protections offered under marriage, they do not include benefits offered under the federal government and cannot be guaranteed recognition universally.
Bonauto, the lawyer for the seven same-sex couples who initiated the Massachusetts battle, argued in an interview with the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly that “the word marriage itself is a substantive protection, and that’s the piece I think that people ignore.”
She said that couples who claim marriage as a connector are guaranteed an unquestionable right to stand by each other in all circumstances, including in time of crisis.
For more information about the teach-in contact Michelle Brodsky at 780-5767 or [email protected].
Christy McKinnon can be contacted at [email protected]