Polyamory Rights, Proposition 8, and the ACLU

DEAR READERS: Below is a moving story from Anthony Romero, a gay man who is Executive Director of the ACLU. He is requesting support for the defeat of Proposition 8 in California that will take away marriage equality, to which I will next post my e-mailed response to him.

It is indeed important that poly people in California vote no on Proposition 8. Some same-sex couples also live a polyamorous life, and we are all in this together. Defeat of Prop 8 is very important because first, it's a social justice issue that deserves all our support, and second, Stanley Kurtz is right about the existence of the slippery slope as multi-partner marriage is concerned. The difference in our point of view is that we know that isn't a bad thing and that his viral handwringing is a waste of time, whereas he believes that the marital sky is falling. - Anita


Dear ACLU Supporter,

I'm angry and heartsick about what may happen in California on November 4th.

In the most personal way possible, I'm writing to ask you for a favor: help us ensure that gay couples all across California keep their fundamental right to marriage -- the basic right to be treated just like anybody else.

I hope you will forgive the indulgence when I speak from the heart and tell you my personal story.

You see, I grew up in a loving and supportive household, where my family believed I could be anything I chose -- anything except being an openly gay man. Neither of my parents finished high school, and yet, they believed I could accomplish all I set out to do as I went off to Princeton University and Stanford Law School.

They got me through the toughest of times, scrimped and saved, and always believed that failure wasn't in the cards for me. They had more faith in me than I often had in myself. Whenever my parents visited me at Princeton, my Dad would slip a $20 bill in my pocket when my Mom wasn't looking. I never had the courage to tell him that the $20 wouldn't go very far towards my bills, books and tuition. But, it was his support and belief in me that sustained me more than the tens of thousands of dollars I received in scholarships.

When I finished college, they were hugely proud of my -- and their -- accomplishments. That was until I told them I was gay and wanted to live life as an openly gay man.

Though I always knew I was gay, I didn't come out to them for many years, as I was afraid of losing the love and support that had allowed me to succeed against all odds. When I did tell them, they cried and even shouted. I ended up leaving their home that night to spend a sleepless night on a friend's sofa. We were all heartbroken.

When my Mom and I spoke later, my Mom said, "But, Antonio (that's the name she uses with me), hasn't your life been hard enough? People will hurt you and hate you because of this." She, of course, was right -- as gay and lesbian people didn't only suffer discrimination from working class, Puerto Rican Catholics, but from the broader society. She felt that I had escaped the public housing projects in the Bronx, only to suffer another prejudice -- one that might be harder to beat -- as the law wasn't on my side. At the time, it felt like her own homophobia. Now I see there was also a mother's love and a real desire to protect her son. She was not wrong at a very fundamental level. She knew that treating gay and lesbian people like second class citizens -- people who may be worthy of "tolerance, " as Sarah Palin asserts, but not of equality -- was and still is the last socially-acceptable prejudice.

Even before I came out to them, I struggled to accept myself as a gay man. I didn't want to lose the love of my family, and I wanted a family of my own -- however I defined it. I ultimately chose to find my own way in life as a gay man. This wasn't as easy as it sounds even though it was the mid-1980s. I watched loved ones and friends die of AIDS. I was convinced I would never see my 40th birthday, much less find a partner whom I could marry.

As years passed, my Mom, Dad and I came to a peace, and they came to love and respect me for who I am. They even came to defend my right to live with equality and dignity -- often fighting against the homophobia they heard among their family and friends and in church.

The right to be equal citizens and to marry whomever we wish -- unimaginable to me when I first came out -- is now ours to lose in California unless we stand up for what's right. All of us must fight against what's wrong. In my 43 short years of life, I have seen gay and lesbian people go from pariahs and objects of legally-sanctioned discrimination to being on the cusp of full equality. The unimaginable comes true in our America if we make it happen. But, it requires effort and struggle.

One of the things I love about the ACLU is that it's an organization that understands we are all in this together. We recognize that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Given what's at stake in the outcome of this election, I am personally appealing to you for help to fight the forces of intolerance from carrying the day in California next Tuesday.

If you have friends and family in California, please contact them right now, and ask them to vote NO on Proposition 8. You can send them a message here.

We need to make sure people keep in mind that gay people are part of every family and every community -- that like everyone else, gay people want the same rights to commit to their partners, to take care of each other and to take responsibility for each other. We shouldn’t deny that, and we shouldn’t write discrimination into any constitution in any state. Certainly, we can't let that happen in California after the highest court in the state granted gay and lesbian people their full equality.

Unfortunately, due to a vicious, deceitful $30 million advertising blitz, the supporters of Prop 8 may be within days of taking that fundamental right away.

To stop the forces of discrimination from succeeding, we have to win over conflicted voters who aren't sure they're ready for gay marriage but who are also uncomfortable going into a voting booth and stripping away people's rights. With the ACLU contributing time, energy and millions of dollars to the effort, we're working hard to reach those key voters before next Tuesday.

If you have friends and family in California, please contact them right now, and ask them to vote NO on Proposition 8. Share this email with them. Call them. Direct them to our website for more information.

Don't let other young people grow up to be afraid to be who they are because of the discrimination and prejudice they might face. Let them see a future that the generation before them couldn't even dream of -- a future as full and equal citizens of the greatest democracy on earth.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." As we strive to defeat Prop 8 and the injustice it represents, the ACLU is trying to make that arc a little shorter.

On behalf of my Mom and family, and on behalf of all the people who will never face legally-sanctioned discrimination, I thank you for being part of this struggle and for doing everything you can to help.

It is a privilege and honor to have you as allies in this fight for dignity and equality.

With enormous appreciation,

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
ACLU

P.S. All the polls show that the vote on Prop 8 could go either way. By making just a few calls or sending just a few emails, you could help make the difference. Please, don’t let this fundamental right be taken away. Send an eCard to everyone you know in California.

"Where's the Poly Pride Update?", you ask. Also, Poly in NY Times and NY Post

Several of you have written saying you're waiting for me to post about the Poly Pride weekend celebration in NYC this past weekend. I hope to get that up later today. The delay is attributable to a very late arrival home Sunday, being jammed at work Monday and Tuesday, a root canal last night, and to top it off, scheduling time off work and pre-surgical testing in anticipation of knee surgery on October 17. And of course, there was the presidential debate last night. But never fear, I've got a lot of juicy stuff to post and you'll have it soon.

In the interim, here are links to the articles in the NY Times and the New York Post that coincided with the Poly Pride event. (You may have to log in or create a membership to see the articles.) Note that the NY Post article includes a great picture of the fabulous folks who put together all the way cool Poly Pride events that happened over the course of this past weekend.

I got a laugh out of The Agitator's morning links today, which includes a reference to the Agitator's very clever parody, Careless Whispers, posted in 2004, on Stanley Kurtz's same-sex marriage, um, issues,

Polyamory hits the New York Times, Stanley Kurtz’s head a’splodes.

Polyamory Watch - a Resource for Proponents of Traditional Marriage

Maggie Gallagher, the woman who Stanley Kurtz made very happy with his slippery slope argument against same-sex marriage, operates the conservative Institute for Marriage and Public Policy based in Manassas, Virginia. Maggie and her cohorts have been belly up to the feed trough of your and my federal tax dollars pretty much since George Bush took office. They use our money to oppress stable, healthy, loving homes and families that don't look like they think they should, which is basically anything that isn't one man, one woman, til-death-do-us-part monogamy.

Maggie Gallagher, with Kurtz's support, is, have no doubt, the chicken little of the debate on marriage and public policy, and she has taken to including a section in her daily postings called "Polyamory Watch" in which she provides links to on-line news articles that reference polyamory.

Many polyfolk want nothing to do with the mainstream and prefer to stick their heads in the sand in hopes of continuing to exist under the mainstream radar. If ever there was a sign that doing so is no longer possible, it is that there is now a regular feature on the website of a hugely well-funded organization that thinks polyamory is enough of a threat to marriage to warrant its own special reporting section. I don't know whether to be pleased or appalled, but I'm definitely not surprised.

Family Law Academic Acknowledges Significant Difference Between Religious Polygamy and Polyamory as Regards Public Policy

Canadian Law Professor Lorraine E. Weinrib's column, Second Opinion, published today online at LawTimesNews.com includes the following statement, the first of its kind I've seen that recognizes the legitimacy of the interests of polyamorists in public discourse and debate over marriage rights as they apply to same-sex marriage, religious polygamy, and the slippery slope to polyamory as defined by Stanley Kurtz.

In forging public policy, it is important to distinguish between polygamous marriage within authoritarian religious communities and polyamorous relationships. The latter do not necessarily pose harm. They presumably involve mature, informed, and consenting adults, who have access to reproductive health information and health-care services, full exit rights, and access to enforcement of the relevant legal entitlements and protection.

It is heartening to now see that family law academics are publicly and knowledgeably identifying the significant differences in the context of public policy between the non-egalitarian ways of religious polygamy and the egalitarian ways of polyamory. These differences matter significantly in human rights terms.

Same-Sex Marriage and the Slippery Slope to Polyamory

So I recently promised in my last post here to explain how it is that polyamorists and same-sex marriage advocates find themselves sometimes at odds with each other. It all started with a guy named Stanley Kurtz. Kurtz is a fellow at the think tank Hoover Institution, a contributing editor to the National Review Online as well as The Weekly Standard, all highly respected bastions of conservatism, with a special interest in America's culture war. As a Harvard Ph.D. in social anthropology, his writings focus on the family, feminism, homosexuality, affirmative action, and campus political correctness.

Over the past few years, Kurtz has become the darling of the religious right and the marriage movement via his writings about why permitting same-sex partners to marry will literally bring about the demise of our civilization as we know it. He explains everything so smoothly, logically and reasonably while using no hate speech that he gains a lot of credibility for his assertion that same-sex marriage will open the door to the “slippery slope to polyamory”

He first establishes this premise in his August 4, 2003 Weekly Standard article entitled “Beyond Gay Marriage: The Road to Polyamory” in which Kurtz explains his point like this. If same-sex partners are permitted to marry, once the legal definition of marriage is altered to permit anyone other than two opposite sex partners to marry, then there will be no legal basis for denying the same rights to polygamists, polyamorists, or even members of the same biological family. Naturally, the very idea of this is so abhorrent to conservatives (who, by the way, know little to nothing about polyamory itself), especially to religious conservatives, that this premise grew legs almost instantaneously and began to be used far and wide by religious extremists to incite those opposed to same-sex marriage to stand up and voice their opposition in what has at times sounded like a genuine frenzy of freaking-out. Of course, they've been intentionally alarmed with the belief that what other people do in their marriages is somehow going to affect *their* marriages. What a lot of baloney.

For the record, Cathy Young, a columnist I often admire who writes for The Boston Globe and the libertarian magazine Reason, also wrote on this subject in 2004 in her article entitled "Opening Marriage: Do Same Sex Unions Pave the Way for Polygamy?" She also blogged on the subject here.

Kurtz seems to do his homework, at least after a fashion. In his subsequent, lengthy piece in the National Review Online dated March 23, 2005, entitled Rick Santorum was Right, he managed to unearth the Divilbiss child custody case which took place in Memphis back around 2000 – and he also located Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, though he misidentifies their mission as one of advocacy for polyamory and poly marriage instead of advocacy within the Unitarian Universalist Association – a HUGE difference - for polyfolk who are UUs. How he missed Lovingmore, The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and The Institute for 21st Century Relationships I can’t say, each of which is a bona fide non-profit advocate for polyamory (though none has taken on multi-partner marriage as part of their mission as of yet).

What is more important in the March 2005 article is that Kurtz cited Elizabeth Emens, whom he refers to as “A whiz kid with a Ph.D. in English from Cambridge University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.” He goes on to say:

“Emens, who [while writing her paper taught at] the University of Chicago Law School, has published a major legal and cultural defense of polyamory (group marriage). In ‘Beyond Gay Marriage,’ I showed that state-sanctioned polyamory was rapidly becoming the favorite cause of scholars of family law. Yet not until now has anyone offered so bold, informed, intelligent, and comprehensive a brief for polyamory. Emens's breakthrough article is a sign that the case for mainstreaming polyamory is finally being...well, mainstreamed.”

From Stanley’s mouth to God’s ear. Yes, Elizabeth Emens did indeed do we polyfolk an excellent turn with her paper. One could argue that she is equally responsible for endangering the same-sex marriage movement, but there is no denying the integrity of her work.

Kurtz, to bang the drum some more, followed up the two previously-referenced articles with yet another in the Weekly Standard dated December 26, 2005, entitled "Here Come the Brides: Plural marriage is waiting in the wings." I don't recall there being much in this one that he hasn't already said. Maybe he still owed those for whom he shills a bit more drum banging.

Ironically, we polyfolk have no argument with his premise that same-sex marriage must logically lead to multi-partner marriage. He is likely correct. Where we differ is whether we think that is a bad thing or a good thing.

As you can imagine, none of this came as good news to the same-sex marriage movement. As a result, some of its guiding lights, as well as its supporters, don’t think much of polyamory and really, really, really hope we will just be quiet and not spoil their chances. (See my last post here for an example of this.) Why it is that sexual minority groups feel so free to discriminate against other sexual minorities, an affront no less hurtful to we polyfolk than the same kind of discrimination from the mainstream is to them, I cannot say, except that there is a huge sense of entitlement that must come from being treated as second class citizens for so long.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no desire to actively seek to derail the effort for same-sex marriage. I know how important it is to many GLBTs, and, on the one hand, I understand and empathize with their longing to achieve this status so long denied them. But on the other hand, I still have to wonder why they long for something that has clearly showed itself to be fatally flawed for half the people who marry, only to end up in divorce court. Surely there is a better way, and I think Emens and the people who issued the Beyond Same Sex Marriage manifesto make a compelling case for some very viable alternatives, which I support. See my earlier post on why I think that government should get out of the marriage business entirely and why that is the only fair way to resolve the issue.

Bottom line here is that Stanley Kurtz can be credited with putting polyamory squarely in the center of the debate and making it the political football everyone is kicking around. Neither side sees a resolution of the issue as being in its best interests, mainly because they fear how such a resolution might affect them.

The polyamory community is still maturing and has not as of yet become organized enough to advocate for itself effectively in all of this - despite Kurtz's assertions to the contrary - but eventually that day will come, I assure you. Just give it some time.