A Statement in Absence about Maine Marriage Equality

I'll be absent from the hearings in Augusta next week when many friends will testify about marriage equality in Maine. Work demands I stay seated and at the keyboard up here in Washington County.

But perhaps you will suffer a few random thoughts, based on experience.

For me, the cogent issue before us is citizenship. Other components of marriage equality stream from that such as equality and responsibility. But the real issue - and, I think, the most effective context for speaking about this issue - is citizenship. The benefits that flow from the way marriage is set up serve to protect and strengthen the smallest unit in our society. If we function as equal contributors in society and are willing to take on equal responsibility we should enjoy equal citizenship. That's it.

I learned a long time ago that appealing to a pol's sense of humanity, appealing to their hearts by showing that their friends suffer for lack of laws they refuse to enact, appealing to their own history, quoting doctors / psychiatrists / lawyers, and showing that societies in which enfranchisement has been established have not crumbled basically does not work. But speaking to their Puritan guts is effective.

That's why, if I was there next week, I'd say that I work 60 hours a week to improve the economic conditions in the poorest county in Maine. I volunteer with community and civic organizations. I attend my town meeting and vote every chance I get. I have a religious practice and participate a religious community. I have a creative life. Like everyone else I know I don't enjoy paying my share of taxes but I do it.

In short, I'm exactly the sort of person you want in your community: the effective, responsible, committed partner in society.

What I don't have is enfranchisement.

I pay more in taxes because my relationship is not recognized by the state and federal government. If I have a health crisis, my parents, with whom I have not lived in nearly 40 years and who are over 80 years old, could claim the right to make critical decisions about my care if they chose to challenge the decisions of my parter. If I were to die, my partner could legally be granted less time to grieve. I have no rights to disperse my property nor can my partner receive survivorship benefits. These and many other conditions flow from civil recognition of my committed relationship.

I'd tell them that I realize they'll make their decision to either change this condition or somehow find it within themselves to continue to apply the status quo. I'd encourage them to do the right thing.

The Gay Problem

During marriage discussions, of late, I remember that, for me, this and all discussion about The Gay Problem is rooted in equality.

Our equality is not something that should ever be decided by voting. It's something that's inherent because we breathe.

A proposition I have forwarded for years is this: Unless and until we have full legal and civil equality, gay people are living under conditions that suggest taxation without representation.

Just like every citizen of the United States, gay people are required to contribute to society in general by paying taxes, building up social security, and paying property and other taxes.

But unlike its contract with other citizens, society enacts legal and cultural prohibitions against gay people that effectively prevent us from serving in the military, enacting family structures, holding various kinds of employment, inheriting property, and naming certain beneficiaries.

In many jurisdictions we cannot expect to obtain mortgages or business loans.

In certain jurisdictions we must transact our lives behind filmy but absurdly convoluted layers of secrecy in order to avoid physical harm and even death.

Our youth have no guarantee of a safe learning environment; there are more of them homeless on the streets than any other demographic.

In short, we are hidden in plain sight.

If that's where civil society and its laws wishes to place us and, for whatever reasons they wish to continue to do so, I say OKAY. BRING IT ON.

My Final Solution to The Gay Problem is Cut Me Loose.

I would love to put the funds I now pay into my local, state, and federal governments in another pot that I could use for my self sufficiency. Lord knows my standard of living would immediately improve by magnitudes.

I could say more but I'll stop here. I have a lot to do between now and tomorrow morning when my work week starts.

( I was away from home most of Friday night and all of Saturday helping, as a member of a committee I'm part of in my small town, to get ready for a community Veterans Day Supper. We fed 260 people - 66 of whom were veterans. The vets and their spouses were our guests for the dinner. After we finished with the dinner and cleaned up I came home and stayed up too late - I slept in really late this morning. I still have to get out my check book and pay my monthly bills and then get ready for a meeting at work where we'll discuss how we can implement economic development projects that we hope will improve conditions here in one of the poorest counties in the United States.)

All this to say that, as a citizen, I show up. Most of us do.

I'd like the hobnailed boot off my neck now, please.

Or, if that's not on America's Legal and Cultural Agenda, cut me loose.