Same-Sex Unions Shaping Up as Next Political Battleground

Like rival armies locked in trench warfare, activists supporting and opposing legal rights for same-sex couples are regrouping after bitter election campaigns and girding for future struggles that will likely divide America for many years to come.

In state capitols, courthouses and corporate boardrooms, gay marriage and its variants--civil unions and domestic partnerships--will be an inescapable topic.

In Texas, conservative legislators will try this year to make their state the 35th to adopt a law or constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. In New York and Rhode Island, gay lawmakers will introduce bills to legalize it.

“There will be setbacks and right-wing backlash,” said Evan Wolfson, a leading gay-rights lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. “That’s exactly how every civil rights movement in American history has proceeded.”

Last spring, gay-rights activists were elated when Vermont enacted its landmark civil-unions law, becoming the first state to extend the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples.

In November, Democratic Gov. Howard Dean--who signed the bill--survived an election challenge by a foe of civil unions, but more than 20 legislators who had supported the law were defeated. In Nebraska and Nevada, initiatives proposing to ban same-sex marriage were approved with 70% support.

“This will be a long-term battle, like abortion,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, a Washington, D.C., group that opposes legal recognition of gay couples. “The people on our side are every bit as committed as the people on their side.”

While Nevadans must vote again in 2002 before that state’s constitutional amendment takes force, the Nebraska constitutional amendment has gone into effect--and already is a prime target for the gay-rights movement.

The American Civil Liberties Union, backed by other groups, is preparing a lawsuit challenging the amendment, which bans legal recognition not only of gay marriage but also of domestic partnerships, civil unions “and other similar same-sex relationships.”

“It’s been sold as a defense-of-marriage amendment, but it’s really an anti-family amendment,” said Tim Butz, executive director of the Nebraska ACLU. “It makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a gay or lesbian family to plan for the future, for the adoption of children, division of property.”

Butz expects the legal challenge to take several years and likely reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is a national battleground here,” Butz said.

Indeed, backers of the Nebraska amendment are urging other states to broaden their existing defense-of-marriage laws to address civil unions. The aim would be to deter couples from going to Vermont for a civil-union ceremony, then claiming legal recognition back home.

“Homosexual activists have been very crafty in calling homosexual marriage by another name,” said Guyla Mills, a leader of the campaign on behalf of the Nebraska amendment. “I’ve had many states contact me, interested in doing the same thing we did.

“It’s becoming harder and harder for people to express any kind of opposition to the homosexual agenda for fear of being called hatemongers,” she said. “I’m not one to throw in the towel. . . . We’re going to hold ground. We’re going to take back ground.”

Amy Desai, a policy analyst for the conservative group Focus on the Family, said proponents of gay marriage underestimate the grass-roots opposition to their cause.

“Your . . . mom-and-dad voter, up until this point, hadn’t viewed this as a real threat. Now they’re waking up and saying, ‘You can’t force such a radical change on us without us becoming very angry.’ ”

In Texas, where state law explicitly defines marriage as between a man and a woman, some conservatives nonetheless want to join the majority of other states in enacting a defense-of-marriage law.

State Rep. Warren Chisum, who unsuccessfully sponsored similar bills in 1997 and 1999, says he will try again this year.

“The chances do look better,” Chisum said. “After Vermont’s fiasco, there is a growing support to step up to the table and do the right thing.”

To Texas gay-rights activists, Chisum’s bill is vindictive.

“We already know we can’t get married here,” said Diane Hardy-Garcia, executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Lobby of Texas. “The only thing that can happen with this is division and hurt.”

Hardy-Garcia said her legislative priority this year is a hate-crimes bill.

“Those of us from conservative Southern states have to be very realistic about what we do,” she said. “Legislators would think I’m crazy if I went up and asked them to pass a marriage bill right now.”

In New York and Rhode Island, however, openly gay legislators plan to introduce gay-marriage bills this year.

Rhode Island Rep. Michael Pisaturo is unsure whether his bill will get through the House Judiciary Committee, but said he is intent on persevering year after year until he prevails or loses his seat.

“Most of my colleagues realize it’s the right and fair thing to do,” he said. “But politically, it’s a different story. Most politicians really worry about getting reelected.”

Pisaturo has rejected suggestions that he propose civil unions rather than full-fledged marriage.

“I can’t accept anything that codifies in statute my second-class citizenship,” he said.

In New York, state Sen. Tom Duane plans to introduce two bills, one proposing civil unions and the other full-fledged marriage for same-sex couples, according to his chief of staff, Andrew Berman.

“We see these two as long-term projects,” said Berman, explaining that Duane’s proposals would lack teeth until other antidiscrimination measures were enacted.

Despite the efforts of Pisaturo and Duane, the director of the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project doesn’t expect any state to swiftly endorse gay marriage.

“There isn’t another Vermont on the short-term horizon,” said Matt Coles. “It will look like there’s a pause in the movement. But I say to people, ‘Look more closely.’ ”

He said polls suggest a majority of Americans favor some legal rights for gay couples, albeit not official marital status. He also noted the increasing number of corporations extending domestic partnership benefits to gay employees.

“Ten years ago there were just a handful of companies doing that,” Coles said. “Now it’s becoming the standard of operation.”

Activists in both camps also detect growing empathy for gays and lesbians among young Americans, as evidenced by the spread of gay-straight alliances at high schools and colleges.

“The young people get it,” said Deanna Kaffke, a gay-rights leader who teaches at the University of Nebraska. “Even with a conservative student body, a majority of students on campus see that this is a civil rights issue.”

If Vermont’s civil-unions law has helped galvanize opposition to gay marriage, it also has inspired many same-sex couples. Among them are Marcie Elias and Hillary Smith of New York City, who are planning a civil-union ceremony in Vermont.

Elias, 28, described herself as “very traditional.”

“I’ve always envisioned myself getting married and having a home. When I came out, that never changed.”

Many gay couples see no need for a formal ceremony, she said, “but in my mind it’s important to get up in front of my closest friends and family and say, ‘This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.’ ”

Elias, a management consultant, predicted that a steady stream of same-sex couples would enter civil unions in Vermont, then return home and seek legal benefits reserved for heterosexual spouses.

“They’ll get their requests denied, and eventually it’s going to work its way to the courts,” she said. “As more and more gay couples start clamoring for legal rights and protections, it will become more and more of an administrative nightmare for the states.”

Wolfson, the Lambda Defense Fund attorney, agreed that civil unions made in Vermont would spawn lawsuits.

“This is not some chess game,” he said. “These are real people who have entered a serious legal relationship. As they encounter discrimination or even uncertainties, there will be litigation.”

Milton Regan, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in family law, predicted that state courts would be the pivotal battleground over the next several years as gay couples seek broader rights.

“The growing recognition from the corporate sector begins to confer some legitimacy,” he said. “But . . . there will be backlashes in many areas. It’s one of those battlegrounds in which there is lurching in one direction and the other.”

*

Gay-rights information: https://www.lambdalegal.org/

Opposition to rights for same-sex couples: https://www.family.org/cforum/research/papers/a0011635.html