We are hopeful for a positive outcome and that equality will be the winner.
You may recall in previous posts how the case came to be in 2016.
Same-sex couples want to marry for all the same reasons as their opposite-sex counterparts.
These reasons include: for legal security, to publicly celebrate their commitment, to provide greater legal protection for their children, or simply because they are in love.
FIRST, we will look at the benefits that flow to same-sex couples who marry. This is followed by the wider social benefits that come from removing discrimination from the Marriage Act and ensuring equality for same-sex couples.
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SECOND, married partners have immediate access to all relationship entitlements, protections and responsibilities.
This contrasts to de facto couples who must live together for a certain period before they are deemed to have legal rights.
A marriage certificate also allows married partners to easily prove their legal rights if challenged, for example in emergency situations. The capacity to quickly and easily prove one’s relationship status is particularly important for same-sex partners because prejudice against same-sex relationships can mean legal rights are denied.
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THIRD, allowing same-sex couples to be included in such a universal and valued institution as marriage will provide them and their families with real social and cultural benefits.
Landmark research led by Lee Badgett, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, describes and quantifies some of these benefits in two different places that have allowed same-sex marriages for several years, the Netherlands and Massachusetts.
[ii] Badgett found that same-sex partners overwhelmingly,
• felt marriage had increased their commitment and their sense of responsibility, and had generally strengthened their relationships
• believed their children were better off after their marriage, chiefly through legal protection for those children and enhanced feelings of security, stability and acceptance in the children, and
• felt participation and acceptance in their extended families and communities had increased because of their marriage
Her conclusion was that,
“Overall, the experiences of same-sex couples in two countries, the United States and the Netherlands, suggests that same-sex couples and their families are strengthened by a policy of marriage equality for same-sex couples.”
There is also a growing body of research showing that married partners, including same-sex married partners, are, on average, healthier, happier and longer lived, than their cohabiting peers, or singles. According to the US Centre for Disease Control, even rates of heart disease, drug use and stress are lower among married partners.
References:
[ii] Badgett, M.V., N. Goldberg and C. Ramos, The Effects of Marriage Equality in Massachusetts: A survey of the experiences and impact of marriage on same-sex couples. UCLA School of Law, 2009. Also, When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage. New York University Press, 2009.
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FOUR, Bermuda's ban on same-sex marriage doesn’t only disadvantage those same-sex partners who seek to marry.
It disadvantages all same-sex attracted Bermudians, including those who are not in a relationship, or who would not marry, even if they could.
It does this by treating them as legally unequal to their heterosexual counterparts, and by not allowing them the same life choices.
Governments restrictions on who gay and lesbian Bermudians can marry violates their fundamental human rights in the same way the rights of Aboriginal Australians of African Americans were once violated by laws which prevented from marrying who they wished.
The association between the equality in marriage and freedom from second-class status is well understood in the context of the struggle for the civil rights of people of color.
In 1958, in the midst of the struggle for black civil rights in America, Martin Luther King Jr declared,
“When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom.”
[iii] Consider all the other groups in society, along with people of color and same-sex attracted people, who at one time or another have been denied the right to marry the partner of their choice: women, people from differing faiths, people with disabilities.
What they all have in common is that they have been regarded as too immature or irresponsible to make what is arguably the most important decision any individual can ever make, the choice of a life-long partner.
In the same vein, the gradual acceptance that members of these groups are fully adult, fully citizens and fully human, has been accompanied by an acceptance of their right to marry whomever they wished.
References:
[iii] King (Jr), M. L., Carson, C., Luker, R., and Russell, P. A., (2000) The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr: Symbol of the movement, January 1957, University of California Press, Berkeley. Page 436.
Keeping our fingers crossed
Peace & tolerance
H
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