Oldie but goodie: Love Matters

In the run up to the November 4th election and the vote in California on Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would place an anti-gay marriage amendment on the CA constitution, I've decided to re-post an article from my old blog. I wrote it on Valentine's Day 2006. Since then, the Supreme Courts in California and Connecticut have issued decisions allowing gay marriage. There's the possibility that history and the courts may be moving in the direction of equality. Unfortunately, some people choose to use fear and bigotry to push through ballot measures that would undo years of work and place hate into the supreme law of the most populous state in the union.

If you read my blog and you live in CA, Vote NO on Prop 8

Today is Valentine's Day. A day when couples around the nation (world?) celebrate love and happiness and other gushy stuff that I couldn't care less about.

That said, I feel compelled to use today to post about Marriage Equality. This is the day of the year that is about love (ok, and chocolate) and the greatest manifestation of love is marriage and dedicating your life to 1 other person and building a family with him/her. However, in 49 states in the nation, 7% of the adult population (15 million) is not able to legally marry. Yes, this nation that is currently fighting for equality and an end to religious oppression in other nations denies a significant portion of its citizens this fundamental right. Why? Does their love matter less than everyone else?

No. But this isn't about love. It's about fear. It's about discrimination. And it's about hate.

Because if everyone thought about the benefits of granting equal rights of marriage regardless of gender or sex, they wouldn't have an argument against it. But thinking about the benefits - I can find several arguments for it:

Continued discrimintation is un-constitutional: Beyond the arguments about church and state, is the fact the Supreme Court has already ruled that marriage is an fundamental right that all people in the United States are entitled to. In the case of Loving v Virginia, 1967, the court held that, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Warren writes that

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival...To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.

Going out on a limb, I would not just apply the due process clause of the 14th ammendment, but I would also use the lesser regarded "privledges and immunities" clause. As a refresher, the 14th ammendment reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws

By narrowly defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, you are depriving people of their lives and the priviledge afforded to all citizens to get married. Only in the circumstance of bigamy is marriage otherwise hampered. You can get married while on death row for murder - when stripped of most other rights, but you cannot marry if you will be marrying someone of your same sex.

Further, marriage discrimination is anti-competitive. States that want the edge on attracting the best and brightest workers should start recognizing all marriages soon. 211 of the Fortune 500 and 3/4 of the Fortune top 50 companies offer "spousal equivalent" or domestic partner benefits to their lesbian and gay employees. Because states currently have a patchwork of rights (or denial of rights) afforded to GLBT citizens - ranging from legalized same-sex marriages in Massachusetts to basic domestic-partner benefits in other states and an explicit denial of all rights in Virginia - companies with wide-spread offices face challenges in offering benefits and face the possibility that some of their best workers will avoid or refuse transfers and promotions to states that are hostile to their families.

I suppose first we should step back and solidify the argument that these benefits are good for business. In the most basic of terms, its a case of equal pay for equal work. Benefits can be up to 40% of total compensation. Because they are often based on marriage (although discrimination based on marital status is illegal), employees who are married technically make more than employees who do not. At the same time, because most states have not legalized gay marriage, benefits based on marriage are unattainable for gay workers. Further, Domestic partner benefits are a generally inexpensive enhancement to overall compensation packages that play a large part in recruitment and retention of employees. In fact, they are the #1 most effective recruiting incentive for executives and #3 for managers and line employeeds. Finally, one could use this arguement from the Human Rights campaign in regards to the increase in productivity for offering domestic partnership benefits.

A domestic partner benefits program will also improve employees' productivity by alleviating personal stress that may keep them from focusing fully on work. At least one workplace advocate has employed a simple formula to measure the dollar amount of increased productivity created by a fair and inclusive work environment for GLBT workers. The formula conservatively assumes the number of
GLBT employees in any workplace to be 5 percent and the amount of productivity associated with a safe and equitable workplace to be 10 percent. Using these figures, you can illustrate how much money a company might lose by not providing a safe and equitable workplace. (For example: A company with a workforce of 1,000 employees would have 50 GLBT employees [1,000 x 0.05=50]. If the average salary is $40,000, the average loss in productivity per GLBT worker per year is $4,000 [$40,000 x 0.10=$4,000]. Thus, the total annual loss to the company in productivity would be $200,000 [50 x$4,000=$200,000].)

Jumping back to the original argument of the anti-competitive nature of marriage discrimination, companies that make the smart business decision to offer such benefits should - and will - choose to not do business in a state that, based on descrimination, causes the financial and logistical nightmare described above.

Finally, love matters. In a time when 50% of marriages end in divorce, it doesn't make sense to punish anyone who wants to be in a loving relationship. The Human Rights Campaign has a beautiful homepage up today that shows the relationships that our GLBT friends, loved ones and neighbors are in - in spite of discrimination. How many of us can say that we have found the person with whom we want to spend the rest of our lives? And how many of us would accept that we cannot marry that person because a few people are uncomfortable or find a moral objection to our relationship? I think most of us would be pretty flipping mad.

It's time to support marriage equality. GLBT couples in 8 states are currently in legal battles to fight for their rights. Show the courts and the legislatures that love matters - not discrimination. Visit www.hrc.org or www.lambdalegal.org to learn how to make a difference.

Happy Valentine's Day!