Jackson Free Press

Advocates for the state's gay and lesbian community participated in a nationwide protest against Proposition 8 over the weekend. About 70 people met on High Street, between the state Capitol building and the Sillers Building to protest the passage of the California ballot initiative, which changed that state's constitution to prevent California from recognizing the marriage of same-sex couples. California voters approved the constitutional amendment Nov. 4 with about 6.2 million supporting the amendment and 5.6 million in opposition.

The amendment passed with a majority of Republicans, churchgoers and African Americans in support.

Mississippi ACLU organizer Brent Cox said Proposition 8 is not just a California issue. "This is an equality issue for anyone who wants full equality. With marriage, you have immediate entry into an emergency room, and you don't have to explain the dynamics of your relationship everywhere you go," Cox said. "The bottom line is the United States has created this institution called marriage, and in the U.S. we don't have institutions that only allow some people in, that only allow white people in, or only heterosexuals. We have a United States government that is supposed to be all inclusive."

The American Family Association, of Tupelo, contributed $500,000 to the effort to support Proposition 8. AFA founder Donald Wildmon told Web site Religious Dispatches that Proposition 8 represents one side of a culture war.

"If we lose California, if they defeat the marriage amendment, I'm afraid that the culture war is over, and Christians have lost," Wildmon said, "... California is a big dam, holding back the flood—and if you take down the dam in California, it's going to flood 49 other states. It will destroy marriage as it has been known for thousands of years, and with that the cultural decline that normally would follow."

AFA argues on its Web site that blurring the definition of marriage as between man and woman will lead to polygamy, as well as marriage between adults and children, among other combinations.

Wildmon did not return JFP calls regarding the threat that legalized divorce poses. AFA has supported no known referendums to repeal legal divorce, however, despite about half of all American marriages ending in divorce.

Cox and others framed the debate as a civil rights issue, arguing that legal protection of property and privacy is off limits to gays and lesbians as long as marriage is out of reach. Cox explains that many longtime gay and lesbian partners must "carry around a huge folder containing all your legal documents" to validate even the most long-standing of gay relationships.

"If you're heterosexual, and your partner ends up in the emergency room, all you have to do is show up and say, 'this is my spouse,' and it's understood that you can come into the ICU," Cox said. "And then there's the matter of inheritance issues. Property can still be disputed by the deceased's family members if the couple's partnership is not recognized by the state as marriage."

Relatives of the deceased partner, according to Cox, can come out of nowhere at the funeral and demand the deceased's possessions, even if those possessions were amassed over decades with the help of the surviving partner.

Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Brad White told the Jackson Free Press that a majority of Mississippians likely oppose gay marriage, and that he could not bring himself to recognize the right of gays to marry. He said he would not be opposed to homosexuals having access to a civil union status offering the same rights as marriage.

"Civil unions or some kind of similar accommodation is not out of the question, but there are too many people who are not willing to accept gay marriage at this time," White said.

Protester Duane Malone said civil unions often do not offer the same hard protections that marriage has regarding inheritance disputes. "It doesn't matter how long you've been together, you're partner's relatives can take you to court over his things, if he dies," he said.

The refusal to allow marriage denigrates gays and lesbians to second-class citizenry, argue advocates, and contradicts the language of the 14th Amendment, among other aspects of the U.S. Constitution.

Many of the protesters were not gay, but straight allies; parents, children or friends of gays and lesbian. Jackson resident Patrick Neely, for example, is not gay, but appeared at the rally because he said he sympathized with the cause.

"I'm out here because a lot of my friends are gay, and I support gay marriage," said Neely, explaining that he was less politically aware when Mississippi passed its own constitutional amendment in 2004, but grew more sensitive to the argument with maturity. "We need to raise awareness on the issue."

Other supporters believed the argument for gay marriage amounted to a "commitment to commitment."

Jackson resident Rims Barber, who performed one of the state's first interracial marriages in the late 1960s, said gay marriage was most often a stable marriage.

"Commitment is important to me. People who make a commitment to each other make for a more stable society, and make the community better. I'm for that. That's good. The state has never done anything progressive on the issue, and has done everything aggressive in terms of adoption and foster care and marriage," Barber said.

Barber compared interracial marriage to gay marriage because, like race, Barber believes homosexual behavior is not a matter of choice.

"I've heard the argument that being gay is a chosen thing, and I disagree. Nobody chooses to make their life more difficult, to risk being ostracized by their family for this. It's something that you're born with. I can't show you the DNA that makes it happen. but I think it's inherited," he said.

Malone said he knew he was gay when he was only 5 years old, and said he resented the framing of the debate as a battle about the bedroom: "It's not just about the bedroom. Heterosexuals don't choose their sexuality, just like gay people don't choose theirs. To break the argument down as a fight about sex undermines the debate from the beginning."

Malone's partner, Robin Webb, who is HIV-positive, followed Barber's argument that marriage promoted healthy behavior, as well as sober-minded introspection.

"You'll have less overnight partnerships if the option for marriage is there," Webb said. "It enables people to have a societal structure in which to stay healthy, make healthy choices, and spend less time looking for partners. Let's say you have a horrible argument with your partner over the weekend. If you're married you can't get a divorce Monday morning. You have to stop and think about the legal issues, the separation anxiety, the mortgage, just like a heterosexual marriage.

Previous Comments

ID

140778

Comment

Head counts actually came in between 128 - 145!

Author

kaust

Date

2008-11-17T21:58:32-06:00

ID

140779

Comment

I'm also loving that you tried to contact the AFA, Adam! We're organizing another rally for January 10, 2009. Some of us want to take it to the AFA's front door and invite the region to join us. Anyone interested can join the Unity Mississippi mailing list or keep an eye on our site. It's time all progressives stand up to help steer Mississippi in a positive direction when it comes to the LGBT community.

Author

kaust

Date

2008-11-17T22:06:35-06:00

ID

140780

Comment

Excellent coverage. This is the article I'm linking to when I tell out of state folks about the event. The AFA non-response cracks me up! And it's always good to see names like Brent Cox, Rims and Judy Barber, and Robin Webb in print. This was, I think, the largest and certainly the best-organized LGBT rights protest in state history. Hopefully a harbinger of many many good things to come. It felt like a VERY big deal to me--reminded me in a lot of ways of Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Summer. Kudos to Knol and everybody else who organized this! There is now a strong, viable gay rights movement in Mississippi, and it happened almost overnight. Thank you, Proposition 8 petitioners, for provoking the first viable 50-state gay rights strategy. You have now awakened the sleeping giant. The head count, I think, is contingent on timing. WAPT got there about 12:30 and estimated 50 people, but Fox 40 News got there about 1-1:15 and estimated over 100 people. The crowd definitely grew over time. My estimate, FWIW, was 150 at peak, but it was based on my subjective sense of crowd size, not a head count. And there were a lot of people who couldn't attend this protest who usually attend LGBT rights events, and there were a lot of people who attended this protest that I'd never met before, so this really grew the movement.

Author

Tom Head

Date

2008-11-18T02:56:49-06:00

ID

140837

Comment

I think this is a very good article too. Both sides' arguments are represented very well, as I understand them at least. I love the take on legalized divorce being the greater threat to marriage than two people loving and wanting to commit themselves to each other. I had never thought of it that way. If Republicans and Democrats both agree that all people should have the same rights, regardless of sexual preference (every politician I've ever heard comment says they don't have a problem with civil unions), what is the hold up? What is marriage at the Justice of the Peace if it's not a civil union? Maybe that's the problem. With the divorce rate as high as it is maybe marriage isn't that civil of a union. Whatever the problem it needs to be the law so all those people who would ask the spouse of an intensive care patient for their big file of paperwork to be let in to see their loved one know that it is that spouse's right to be there. And to ease the grief of the recent widow or widower in the most difficult times that any one of us might have to endure. We lose nothing in giving basic human rights and dignity to all citizens.

Author

WMartin

Date

2008-11-19T01:28:57-06:00

ID

140953

Comment

"It will destroy marriage as it has been known for thousands of years, and with that the cultural decline that normally would follow.” I get a big kick when folks aver that the culture and perceptions of today actually existed 'thousands of years' ago. Let's just assume that Mr. Wildmon was referring to marriage in western civilization, (because as you know, Western History is the only history - forget our Asian, African, Native American, and other aborignal brethren's historical story) - do we really want to preserve these perceptions of marriage where romantic love is only a recent addition? In ancient Rome, while marriage was encouraged, extramarital prostitution and pedophilia was tolerated. In ancient Israel women were nothing but property that could be sold and polygamy was a sign of wealth. It took until medieval times for the church to gain control of marriage - before which it was a matter of personal civil affairs. Yet, women were still nothing more than domestic slaves and marriage just a transaction between groom and father-of-the-bride. Interestingly it was during the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther declared that marriage was a "worldly thing...that belongs to the realm of government." The Catholics hated that and during the Restoration, the pilgrims took the idea of secular marriage to the colonies. The idea that the dynamic of marriage and it's place in society has been static and unchanging for thousands of years in laughable and reflects the centric egotism of the other side of the gay marriage debate. I wonder how many AFA members would be comfortable with the status quo of just 500 years ago - when most women had no rights in marriage? Evolution is coming and be glad for it, I say!

Author

Krystal

Date

2008-11-24T10:56:29-06:00

ID

140959

Comment

The AFA would probably be comfortable with women not having any marriage rights.

Author

golden eagle

Date

2008-11-24T15:04:23-06:00

ID

140960

Comment

Ha. I thought that myself after I typed it.

Author

Krystal

Date

2008-11-24T15:06:44-06:00

ID

140971

Comment

“If we lose California, if they defeat the marriage amendment, I'm afraid that the culture war is over, and Christians have lost,” Wildmon said." Well, there's the real reason for the freaking. It IS the last bulwark, and they know it, and they know Prop 8-like battles will be won, but really..all said and done: the war itself was decided a long time ago. And Wildmon? His side lost. So to all those who marched: you are brave, putting yourselves in a scary, vulnerable position between the Capitol and the Sillers. Have to remember at times like that we're still fighting locally, but nationally, as the generations turn, we've won the big one. So you also march in victory. I wish I hadn't been 5 states away.

Author

lulms

Date

2008-11-25T05:52:42-06:00