I wrote this article last year after state legislators passed the Hate Amendment bill. It was published in the Church Street Freedom Press and here on the TGW blog. I've revised this piece in honor of the Hate Amendment -- which we, here in Tennessee, get to vote on next Tuesday, thanks to our thoughtless, illiberal, intolerant and divisive leaders.
A Small History of Same-Sex Marriage-like Unions in the U.S.
Those who oppose granting marriage rights to gay members of our community insist that marriage has always been a contract between one man and one woman. But, of course, that is not true.
Throughout the ages, the preferred form of marriage has been polygamy -- one man and many women -- as any Bible will confirm.
Thankfully, things change.
Despite a long history of legislative tinkering with the definition of marriage, lawmakers have a tradition of denying that marriage is a social and political construction that has seen many variations.
Legislators such as Rep. Bill Dunn insist that the rules surrounding marriage have come down from God and, so, must never change. Yet for as long as there have been lawmakers, there have been changes in the legal definitions of marriage.
Those changes include: denying African-Americans the right to marry each other and then granting them that right, outlawing interracial marriage and then legalizing it, forbidding and then allowing married women the right to own property, forbidding and then permitting married couples the right to use contraception, prohibiting and then lifting the prohibitions on divorce, and legislating wives as the property, or chattel, of husbands and then legislating wives as the equals of husbands.
In every instance, legislators could be heard protesting that the changed rules were an “abomination under God” and a “perversion of nature” which would lead to the “destruction of marriage” and “the end of civilization.” Or, as Rep. Dunn puts it, “If you destroy the definition of marriage, then it would have an adverse effect on society."
Yet it is the reality of a changing society that demands changes in the laws. In each of the above examples, lawmakers were forced to change the legal definitions of marriage in order to accommodate changes that had already occurred in society.
One would not expect Tennessee lawmakers to know it, but marriage-like unions between same-sex couples are a common fact of life. And, as scholars such as William Eskridge have demonstrated, they have occurred across cultures throughout all of human history.
In an article on the topic of “lesbian love”, written in the 19th century, a U.S. physician reported that Lucy Ann Slater wore men’s clothes, lived in the wilderness, and supported her same-sex partner by hunting. According to the physician, the “wife” referred to Lucy Ann Slater as her husband. Soon, other lesbian couples in-hiding were noticed.
During the same period, Mary Anderson, a politician much like Rep. Dunn, managed to pass as a man for more than thirty years. By doing so, she was able to support both herself and her wife, in style. In those days, of course, women were rarely permitted to support even themselves.
In the early 20th century, lesbian couples held large elaborate wedding ceremonies in gay subcultures in Harlem and other U.S. cities. Some obtained real marriage licenses by “masculinizing” a first name or by sending a male to the marriage bureau. A number of these marriages were on record in the New York City Marriage Bureau.
By 1953, the Mattachine Society, the first gay rights organization, was debating the topic of same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples continued to hold elaborate wedding ceremonies, make vows of love, and exchange rings, secretly.
In 1979, Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson declared their undying love, made vows of lifelong devotion, and exchanged rings, all in secret. When a car accident left Sharon paralyzed and unable to speak, Karen was forced to ‘come out’ in order to honor her vow.
Sharon’s conservative parents were aghast and made every effort to persuade Karen to go away. After the court awarded guardianship to Sharon’s father, he moved his daughter to a nursing home some 300 miles away from Karen and barred her from visiting Sharon.
Over the next nine years, Karen would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in court battles fighting for the right to honor her vow and care for the woman she loved.
Because of Karen’s persistence, Sharon was eventually moved from a nursing home to a rehabilitation facility where she improved dramatically. In the final court battle, 16 medical witnesses testified that Sharon was competent to choose her own guardian, and that she chose Karen.
Some nine years after the accident, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that the women were “a family of affinity, which ought to be accorded respect.” At long last, Sharon was permitted to go home.
When Tennessee lawmakers endorsed the amendment that would place a ban on same-sex marriage into our state constitution, they expressed a profound disrespect for the vows made by committed couples such as Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski.
A vote against Amendment One on November 7, will be a vote which afirms that each and every one of us deserves the benefits of a loving and committed relationship.
Lesbian Gay Politics Tennessee Homophobia Gay Marriage Republicans Marriage Amendment Tennessee Vote No on 1 Gender News Democrats
