Majority of Iowans back same-sex unions

What it says to me is that 30% of Iowans are uncomfortable with the bigot in the mirror — they don't think that discrimination is okay and have latched onto the false notion that civil unions other than civil marriage can be made equal enough to civil marriage for them to avoid facing that they are not yet ready to acknowledge their gay neighbors and family and coworkers — particularly their marital relationships — as equal to and as good as their own.

But civil unions other than civil marriage cannot be made equal to civil marriage in Iowa law or federal law because both require nonredundancy in law. That means that courts are required to interpret two different laws as different because, presumably, the legislature would never waste the taxpayers money by passing two separate laws to do exactly the same thing.

In addition, there is the problem that civil marriages are universally portable across state and international borders whereas civil unions that are not civil marriage are not. That leaves gay people in the 'here you're married/unionized, there you're not' untenable checkerboard that is the real “gay marriage” instead of enjoying equal access to the same civil marriage law everyone else gets that's called “marriage” or “civil marriage”. Gay people don't want “gay marriage”. We want equal access to “civil marriage”.

Then there's Brown vs Board of Education to consider — both the fact that promoting the separate-can't-be-equal “civil unions” that aren't civil marriage (civil marriage itself being the civil union gold standard) undermines the very foundation of modern civil rights law — with racist implications too terrible to contemplate.

People often forget the studies that were the meat of the Brown case that showed the deep damage to people's sense of self that apartheid creates — that it always communicates that those who don't get access to the real thing but have instead a separate thing sort of like the real thing offered to them are not as good as those who get the real thing. In this case, children get the message that their families aren't considered as good as their friends' families. In one of the plaintiffs' school situations that message was driven home by the school that the child's parents' relationship was so “scary other” that the child would not even be permitted to speak of it.

Most people have experienced or observed a couple whose family doesn't approve of their relationship for some reason or other and where their relative's sweetheart is persona non grata — until they marry, whereupon everyone shrugs and acknowledges that they might not like the relationship but that the couple is family — their family — now. Aunt Tilly might not “get” why her niece Amy loves her beloved Zelda so much but Aunt Tilly understands what getting married means and it helps her understand that Zelda is family now in a way that, if Amy and Zelda were “unionized” would never convey. In fact, that she wouldn't even have language to use to describe it — “unionized?”, “civilly unioned?”, “civilized?”, “???” — just enhances how separate and unequal the situation is.

No, civil unions other than civil marriage can never be equal and the 30% still staring in the bigot in the mirror and squirming will have to get down off that fence one way or another. Let's hope they come down on the side of that good old Iowan tradition of fairness and equality for all.

What it says to me is that 30% of Iowans are uncomfortable with the bigot in the mirror — they don't think that discrimination is okay and have latched onto the false notion that civil unions other than civil marriage can be made equal enough to civil marriage for them to avoid facing that they are not yet ready to acknowledge their gay neighbors and family and coworkers — particularly their marital relationships — as equal to and as good as their own.

But civil unions other than civil marriage cannot be made equal to civil marriage in Iowa law or federal law because both require nonredundancy in law. That means that courts are required to interpret two different laws as different because, presumably, the legislature would never waste the taxpayers money by passing two separate laws to do exactly the same thing.

In addition, there is the problem that civil marriages are universally portable across state and international borders whereas civil unions that are not civil marriage are not. That leaves gay people in the 'here you're married/unionized, there you're not' untenable checkerboard that is the real “gay marriage” instead of enjoying equal access to the same civil marriage law everyone else gets that's called “marriage” or “civil marriage”. Gay people don't want “gay marriage”. We want equal access to “civil marriage”.

Then there's Brown vs Board of Education to consider — both the fact that promoting the separate-can't-be-equal “civil unions” that aren't civil marriage (civil marriage itself being the civil union gold standard) undermines the very foundation of modern civil rights law — with racist implications too terrible to contemplate.

People often forget the studies that were the meat of the Brown case that showed the deep damage to people's sense of self that apartheid creates — that it always communicates that those who don't get access to the real thing but have instead a separate thing sort of like the real thing offered to them are not considered as good as those who get the real thing. In this case, children get the message that their families aren't considered as good as their friends' families. In one of the plaintiffs' school situations that message was driven home by the school that the child's parents' relationship was so “scary other” that the child would not even be permitted to speak of it.

Most people have experienced or observed a couple whose family doesn't approve of their relationship for some reason or other and where their relative's sweetheart is persona non grata — until they marry, whereupon everyone shrugs and acknowledges that they might not like the relationship but that the couple is family — their family — now. Aunt Tilly might not “get” why her niece Amy loves her beloved Zelda so much but Aunt Tilly understands what getting married means and it helps her understand that Zelda is family now in a way that, if Amy and Zelda were “unionized” would never convey. In fact, that she wouldn't even have language to use to describe it — “unionized?”, “civilly unioned?”, “civilized?”, “???” — just enhances how separate and unequal and “lesser than the real thing” the situation is.

No, civil unions other than civil marriage can never be equal and the 30% still staring at the bigot in the mirror and squirming will have to face that there is no easy out — that they'll have to get down off that fence they're trying to balance on one way or another. Let's hope they come down on the side of that good old Iowan tradition of fairness and equality for all.