At a meeting to defeat Proposition 8—the one that “eliminates the right of same sex couples to marry”—we learned that APIs are slightly more in favor of the proposition than against it. We are surprised.
APIs, with a long history of fighting against unequal rights, are now actually in favor of unequal rights? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Have we forgotten all those exclusion acts enacted to deny us rights other people take for granted? Have we forgotten what discrimination feels like?
Are you going to tell us that activist judges subverted the will of the people by overturning a year 2000 initiative that denied LGBTs the right to marry? Well, the will of the people has changed. The latest poll shows that 55 percent of likely voters will vote no on proposition 8.
As for those activist judges, judges are appointed or elected to interpret constitutional principles and not opinion polls. And in finding unconstitutional the prohibition of LGBTs to marry, the judges drew on arguments used in 1948 to overturn a law that prohibited marriage between Asians and Caucasians. Wasn’t that a good thing? Do we think those 1948 judges were activists too?
Are you going to argue that marriage is an institution that unites only a man with a woman? Marriage is a social institution that unites people who love each other. The last 35 years have made it clear that love happens irrespective of gender. In California there are over 90,000 same-sex couples and almost 6,000 of those are API same-sex couples raising 4,400 children.
Perhaps you want to argue that LGBTs already have all the rights heterosexual married couples have in something called civil unions. In America, though, it has long been established that equal but separate is not a valid proposition.
Maybe you read Bishop Allen Vigneron’s message to the faithful of the Oakland Diocese. He wrote, “Marriage is a reality authored by God in his very act of creating the human race.” That is news to us. Our friend Jay Johnson from the Pacific School of Religion told us that it was not until 1215 that marriage was declared a sacrament.
Admittedly, 800 years is time enough to have a belief tightly encrusted as dogma, but it is also true that for most of its existence the church did not think too much about the institution of marriage.
If you belong to a congregation that does not want to marry LGBTs, that’s fine. But why would you impose that prohibition on the 3,100 (and growing) congregations that welcome LGBTs?
We, of course, do not understand why people support proposition 8. But we are totally at sea when we hear that Asians are. Think it over: Denying a right and repressing a group should be un-Asian. We should know better.
Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride (apifamilypride.org).
Also check out the blog at http://beyondborders.asianweek.com/
Two teenagers are being “forced” to get married in Alaska. Are the Christian extremists holding signs outside their parents’ homes decrying the sins outside the sanctity of marriage? I whole-heartly wish the parents-to-be the best, but I find it hard to accept the hypocracy of this minority group. So much time and energy is spent fighting against my right to marry the woman I have been committed to for the past 23 years. We celebrated the 20th anniversary of our commitment by getting legally married in June–the third time to the same woman. Please support us by Voting NO on Proposition 8–Equal Rights for All.
Thanks for the laying out clearly, through this article, the same sex marriage proposition.
Asians supposedly value education. The general exception might be on issues that Asians are typically silent about, such as human sexuality or racial prejudice of other ethnic groups.
With the wealth of information available on the internet, there is no excuse for not becoming aware of the diversity that exists in the sexual orientation of the human race. Wikipedia is a good source to start with.
Religious fundamentalists typically see the world as clear cut black and white. I would like to have them see how their belief system addresses the issue of intersex people. My denomination, the United Church of Christ, calls for people to use their intellect and their hearts to accept and to love all.
What does “discrimination” have to do with the definition of marriage? Is the ban on polygamy or bigamy also an issue of “discrimination”? Polygamy and chilhood brides have long been staples of human cultures since the beginning of time, but no ancient culture ever accepted same sex marriage, Asian or otherwise. If you can get the American people to accept redefining marriage, so be it, but don’t use judges to twist the meaning of marriage to whatever they say it should me.
awarthur:
You continue to surprise me.
But, then, you don’t.
The fact, if, indeed, it IS fact, that “no ancient culture” ever “accepted” “same sex” “marriage” is correct, it still does NOT address the issue of either “why” OR the morality of same.
I think Margaret Mead established some “primitive” cultural stances and slants on “same-sex” phenomena, and the Greeks, for certain, “acknowledged” the social status of the likes of Socrates and their Spartan “comrade” armies, not forgetting the status of Sapphic poets and courtiers.
But the point, actually, is that the majority of “society” continues to misapprehend, misuderstand is a given, their own “sexuality,” or fear of same.
Kinsey proved, far as possible that is, that the human expression of sexuality is just one more “normal,” if you’ll pardon the nonstatistical reference, curve of observable behavior and phenomena.
“Males” of the species who are not quite sure of their own, individual, “masculinity” are the chief obstruction to a fuller and fairer response and reaction to the minority expressions,which, by the way, are NEVER a matter of “choice.”
In short, WHY do you fear and stigmatize “gay marriage”?
What has that to do with you AND “heterosexual” “marriage”?
How can “gay marriage” hurt YOU?
That said, personally, I have little faith in the term “marriage” itself, including the perks and rights and privileges thereof.
In western snivellization, “marriage” between a “man” and a “womn” is just another piece of paper, unless, of course, the two individuals truly care for one another and LIVE such commitment and dedication. In which case, the piece of paper is mere affirmation of a blessed state of human interrelationship.
And your icon, John McCain, which of his “marriages” is the true one? And why the other(s) irrelevant?
ANYone who “loves” someone else and who is committed to same deserves the same perks and rights and privileges as those society deem “fit” for said estate.
Meanwhile, I, for one, am not holding my breath for the millennium of a society that is half as civilized, never mind just, as it claims to be.
Frnnk
P.S.; It’s a private matter to begin with, even IF society deems it every one else’s business. Nosy bastards.