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SOUTHERN VOICE NOVEMBER17/1994
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became the first openly
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GUEST EDITORIAL
Domestic partnership is separate and unequal
by BRENT HARTINGER
Almost everyone has had the experience
of having a friend who is wildly excited about
something—whether it be a new boyfriend,
an investment idea, or whatever—while you
have a sinking feeling about the whole thing.
Bad karma.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot of bad karma
about our community’s fascination with the
phenomenon of “domestic partnership.” At
least as enacted by most governments, do
mestic partnership is a terrible idea.
Invariably, domestic partnership-minded
politicians spout rhetoric about fairness and
discrimination against unmanried couples, both
homosexual and heterosexual. But how is it, I
always wonder, that unmarried heterosexual
couples are “discriminated” against? They al
ready have the option to get married and get
all its benefits and protections. Only lesbians
and gays don’t.
But not all unmarried heterosexual couples
want to get married, these politicians say.
Well, I may not want to take a job that’s been
offered to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m be
ing “discriminated” against when I learn
they’ve decided not to pay me the monthly
salary.
The institution of marriage exists for a
reason—and it’s a pretty damn good one.
Couples who make the long-term commit
ment called marriage are given certain finan
cial and legal benefits. This encourages
couples to make that long-term commitment,
and also compels them to certain legal and
financial obligations should they decide to
break up. All this makes for a more stable,
better functioning society.
With domestic partnership, on the other
hand, financial benefits are doled out without
any of the corresponding responsibilities. As
a result, relationships—and all of society—
will grow even less stable. Domestic partner
ship is one of those ideas—like denying wel
fare payments to single mothers who get mar
ried, or granting government subsidies for the
careless clear-cutting of old-growth forests—
that will leave future generations scratching
their heads and wondering: who the hell had
that brilliant idea?
Straight people need domestic partnership
like Roseanne needs another twenty-two per
sonalities. But heterosexuals are always in
cluded in the laws anyway, mostly so that
politicians don’t alienate the large, hetero
sexual electorate. The inclusion of heterosexu
als also obscures the real nature of this legis
lation: that it is another depressing example
of the bigoted notion of “separate, but equal.”
For straights, domestic partnership is usually
a transition point on the way to marriage, but
for gays it is the only possible end. The re
sult? Domestic partnership for gays, marriage
for everyone else.
Thanks, but no thanks. Gays desperately
need the full legal and economic recognition
of marriage—especially in an era of AIDS.
But once again, government is ignoring the
real, pressing problem—blatant discrimina
tion against lesbian and gay couples—while
simultaneously trying to solve an imaginary,
but politically expedient one—“discrimina
tion” against unmarried heterosexuals. By con
trast, when private corporations like Disney
and Microsoft have bravely enacted their own
forms of domestic partnership, it has applied
only to lesbian and gay couples, who don’t
have the option to marry.
Domestic partnership activists usually
make the point that the American public is
not ready to accept the legalization of gay
marriage. This may be true, but I say we fight
the good fight anyway. Why? Not only be
cause dignity demands it, but also because
domestic partnership is simply bad law. In
addition to destabilizing society, it is vaguely
defined. Exactly who are “domestic partners”
anyway? College roommates? A woman and
her live-in maid? Are these really the sort of
relationships to whom we as a society want to
be granting (and paying) financial benefits?
And do we really want to pay for all the
inevitable lawsuits charging more “discrimi
nation”?
Society already has a measure of commit
ted partnerships; it’s called marriage. Why in
the world should we go about creating a whole
new social institution (and corresponding bu
reaucracy) just to appease the bigotry of those
who think gays are “unfit” for the existing
ode? The reluctance of many lesbians and
gays to even broach the subject of gay mar
riage makes me wonder about our collective
self-esteem—and perhaps sheds some inter
esting light on our community’s discomfort
with committed relationships.
To be fair, many lesbians and gays also
oppose gay marriage for a moral reason. The
institution of marriage, they say, is innately
sexist and oppressive. But if the institution of
marriage is sexist, I say let’s change it. And if
most existing marriages are sexist or oppress
ing, why not simply define and arrange our
partnerships in better, more egalitarian ways?
Thirty years ago, marriage was an innately
racist institution; in many states, interracial
couples could not marry. Fortunately, no one
suggested creating a separate institution—
“mixed race partnerships”—for members of
different races. Instead, interracial couples
demanded that society’s definition of mar
riage be expanded to include them, and in
1967, the Supreme Court agreed with them,
striking down ail existing laws banning mis
cegenation.
The lesbian and gay community should
forget the chimera of domestic partnership. It
will upset a lot of heterosexuals, and even a
few lesbians and gays, but gay marriage is the
answer to our quandary.
Brent Hartinger is a free lance writer for
a number of gay and lesbian publications.
COMMENTARY
Blame it on the Stones
by KEITH RANCOURT
I became a dedicated rock and roll fan at
the tender age of ten when my maternal grand
parents bought me my very first stereo for
Christmas. It was a primitive, sturdy model
with detachable speakers.
My grandparents did not know enough
about popular music to realize that the Beatles
were then enjoying phenomenal success. They
wandered blindly through the record depart
ment at their neighborhood Woolworths and
triumphantly emerged with three albums. One
was by the Monkees, another by the Cowsills
and a third by the Rolling Stones. I quickly
outgrew the Monkees and was already too
cynical to appreciate the wholesome family
values suggested by the Cowsills, but never
lost my initial enthusiasm for the dark appeal
of those British Bad Boys, the Rolling Stones.
I literally wore the record out
My mother was horrified. To this day she
still blames my grandparents and that record
for my steady descent into moral decline and
sexual perversion. Mother was appalled when
her pre-pubescent first bom baby boy left for
Catholic School each morning lustfully sing
ing “Let’s Spend The Night Together.” Nor
did she appreciate my Mick Jagger imitation,
holding the souvenir candle from my first
holy communion as a fake microphone while
angrily insisting, “I was raised by a toothless,
bearded hag! I was schooled with a strap right
across my back!”
Mother seemed personally offended by
another Stones tune about bored housewives
who get through their “busy, dying days,”
with the help of tranquilizers they shame
lessly beg from sympathetic doctors and then
often carelessly take nearly to the point of
overdose. Those little, yellow pills sounded
suspiciously like the ones I once found in
mother’s purse while searching for lunch
money on a morning when she just couldn’t
wake up to see me off to school.
After barely becoming a teenager, I
brought home the new “Sticky Fingers” al
bum cleverly packaged in a cardboard photo
graph of Mick Jagger in blue jeans, complete
with a working zipper revealing the bulging
briefs beneath his tight trousers. The Rolling
Stones had unknowingly crossed a line. My
outraged mother tossed Sticky Fingers into
the trash can and forbade me to ever bring
any more evil Rolling Stones records into her
house. I vowed revenge. Even today I take
devilish delight in listening to that old record
ing on the newest format compact disc, al
though I must admit to feeling somewhat
cheated by the absence of the working zipper
available only on the original album.
Had my outraged mother been inclined to
organize her angry protest against rock music
Tipper Gore would be known today as a mere
recruit in mother’s early censorship army and
not the moral pioneer she is sometimes cred
ited with being for forcing record companies
to put warning stickers on albums with sug
gestive lyrics.
Twenty years later, overwhelming per
sonal problems combined with moral and fi
nancial bankruptcy, forced me to finally ad
mit to a long ignored but fiercely simmering
alcohol and drug habit I then conveniently
tried to blame it on the band. The Rolling
Stones, however, were not really responsible
for my shocking misbehavior and I eventu
ally admitted that.
Although I still listen to Rolling Stones
records regularly and see them several times
on each tour, lately I’ve developed a passion
ate appreciation for country music. Those
twangy, tragic tunes about endless hours of
loneliness, forever lost love and the agoniz
ing heartbreak of betrayal now seem directed
at me in the same strangely intimate way my
first Rolling Stones record once did. Almost
daily I listen to these sad songs with innocent
ease.
I can’t imagine what new problems coun
try music might bring into my already troubled
life, now or in the future. I’ve already suf
fered through more shattered romances than
Nashville’s own heroine of heartbreak,
Tammy Wynette. If Tammy can survive all
that disappointment and live to love again, so
can I.