Live Blog Archive
Olson recapping the expert testimony
Cott: Same-sex couples meet the state’s purposes for marriage. By excluding gay couples from this highly valued institution, society is denying itself another resource for stability and social order.
Olson: We learned racial restrictions finally ended in Loving v. Virginia, a limitation on marriage choices that once existed in 41 states. Prop 8 is very much like those restrictions. It designates gays and lesbians as less worthy. Marriage is special the experts tell us, domestic partnerships and civil unions are pale comparisons. There is nothing that is like marriage except marriage, as Cott put it.
As Dr. Peplau testified, married couples are healthier, live longer, emotionally more stable on every measure of domestic health. Civil unions is a stigma. Removing the stigma would produce powerful collateral benefits, here is Dr. Myer, one of the world’s leading experts on stigma and discrimination.
Myer: We see Prop 8 as part of the stigma, as something that propagates the stigma. It doesn’t send a message that it’s okay to be who you want to be; that we respect that we welcome them as part of the community. It sends the opposite message in my mind, and therefore adds to that pressure that encourages some people to conceal. Also when I talk about the effects of Prop 8, they also send the same message to other people who are not themselves gay. It is not just damaging to gay people because they feel bad about their rejection; it sends a message that it is okay to reject gay people, to designate them as different class of people in terms of their intimate relationships.
Olson: I was struck by that same word appearing again and again. Okay. Sandy just wanted her children to feel okay about who her parents were and who they were living with. The proponents said we must protect our children from being taught that gay marriage is okay. And Dr. Myer testified the stigma is that it is not okay to be gay. That it is abnormal, unusual, certainly that it is not okay. The experts testified not only that same-sex marriage would not harm marriage or diminish heterosexual interest in marriage, but that the elimination of discriminatory barriers and harmful stigmas strengthen the institution of marriage and strengthen our country.
We are not talking just about the couples who wish to marry; we are talking about their children -- 37,000. The evidence was uncontradicted that the lives of these children would be better if they were living in a marital household. Even David Blankenhorn agreed with that proposition:
Blankenhorn: Likely to improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children.
I was stricken by Mr. Blankenhorn’s testimony about the other societal benefits that would arise from SSM. Let me play two excerpts.
Blankenhorn:
Olson: He testified that same-sex marriage would reduce stigma against gays. He went on to say: “I believe the principle of equal human dignity must apply to gay and lesbian persons.” In that sense “insofar as we are a nation founded on this principle we would be MORE American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before.”
You wrote those word did you not?
Blankenhorn: Yes, I did.
Olson: You believe them now?
Blankenhorn: Correct.
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