Sean Cook
The State News

In the style of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” which portrayed a typical Midwestern American couple of 1930, MSU graduate students and couple Matt Earls and Paul Holland pose to illustrate a relationship that is growing in cultural acceptability, same-sex marriage. Though not legal in Michigan, same-sex marriage currently is legal in six states.

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Video: Student Stances on Gay Marriage (06/24/09 12:19am)

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Struggling for same-sex equality

By Brittany Shammas (Last updated: 06/24/09 12:20am)

Marriage is something urban planning graduate student Matt Earls says he’s always dreamed about. But for Earls and his boyfriend, public policy graduate student Paul Holland, marriage remains a dream in Michigan, where a 2004 amendment to the state constitution banned same-sex marriage.

“I guess I just don’t know why my same-sex preference is stopping me,” Earls said. “There’s just something about marriage that seems a lot more concrete than, ‘I’m in a relationship.’ I think it adds more stability.”

Holland and Earls, who have been dating for more than a year, are one couple out of thousands in Michigan hoping for a change to current restrictions on same-sex marriage. The couple said they are confident Michigan is headed toward equality.

History

Michigan’s 2004 vote to approve Proposal 2 created an amendment to the state’s constitution that defined marriage as between one man and one woman, making same-sex marriage illegal within the state.

The proposal was designed to protect families as the foundation of society, said Marlene Elwell, who helped draft it as director of Citizens for the Protection of Marriage. The basic unit of a family, which is the strength of a nation, has always been a man, a woman and their children, she said.

“A marriage is between only one man and one woman,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you have four women together and that defines a family. It’s been like that forever. It’s just that in recent years, people want to change that.”

Holland said although he understands the position of a person who doesn’t want to see a religious term used to define something against his or her beliefs, he doesn’t think it is fair for marriage to be tied to civil statute. The benefits that come with marriage should be available for everyone, regardless of their sexuality, he said.

“Since the word marriage is entwined in civil law, then civilly, everyone’s entitled to marriage,” he said.

Three years after the proposal was approved, MSU, which began offering domestic-partnership benefits to same-sex couples in 1997, was forced to change its policy in 2007, MSU Trustee Colleen McNamara said.

The former policy was illegal under the amendment to the constitution, she said. McNamara said MSU’s current policy, which now complies with state law, still has the effect of providing benefits to same-sex couples employed by the university.

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, which filed a suit against MSU for the same-sex benefits it offered, said offering benefits to same-sex couples equates their relationship with marriage, which is unconstitutional.

“The only thing states can recognize as a marriage is the union of one man and woman,” he said. “(That union) is a role-model relationship for each successive generation of children.”

Since Proposal 2’s approval, all Michigan legislation promoting benefits for gay people has occurred at the county and township level, said Julie Nemcek, co-director of Michigan Equality. Twenty percent of the state’s population now resides in areas where ordinances prohibit housing and employment discrimination on the basis of sexuality, she said. Rep. Pam Byrnes, D-Lyndon Township, recently announced plans to introduce legislation to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage in Michigan. Byrnes could not be reached for comment.

Changes

The greatest progress made toward same-sex benefits in Michigan and in the nation as a whole are changes in the prevailing attitude toward gays, Nemcek said. The public has developed a greater understanding of gay people and relationships, she said.

Twenty years ago, Holland said some people still used the word “degenerate” to describe a gay person. Now, he said, the word is recognized as inappropriate. Progress toward equality is under way, even though it is moving slowly, Holland said.

“Our country, even through hiccups and starts, has become more equal over time,” he said. “In the next 10 years, I’m pretty confident gay marriage will be in Michigan. I think we’re headed in that direction.”

MSU social science professor Stephanie Nawyn said as more gay individuals feel comfortable coming out, the public grows more understanding of the importance of gay rights, she said.

“More people now know they have friends, they have family members who are gay and lesbians and what that’s done is made people see they aren’t crazy or sex-crazed, they’re people that they know, they’re people they love,” she said.

“That has done a tremendous amount to change people’s attitudes toward gay marriage.”

Research now indicates most Americans think gay couples should be allowed to visit each other in the hospital and inherit each other’s estates, and more than half support some form of same-sex marriage, Nawyn said.

Nationwide

In the past 10 years, six states have legalized same-sex marriage and three have created provisions for partnerships, said Michael Craw, an MSU professor in James Madison College. Beginning with Hawaii in 1993, the movement to extend marriage to same-sex couples has taken off in recent years, he said.

Iowa was the most recent state to legalize gay marriage in April, joining Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, he said.

In the long run, the outlook is positive for same-sex marriage, as exposure to and acceptance of gay men and women has expanded nationwide, Craw said. Nawyn said people who have friends or family members who are gay are more likely to be open to same-sex marriage, using former Vice President Dick Cheney as an example. Cheney, whose daughter is a lesbian, now supports same-sex marriage, she said.

“These are people who sit at your dinner table,” she said. “As it has become more acceptable, people become more open to allowing them the same rights — and marriage is just one of those.”

But the issue will play out at the level of each individual state, Craw said.

In Michigan, if the issue of same-sex marriage could return to the ballot, Elwell said she would be prepared to fight again to keep marriage between a man and woman.

Holland said although he doesn’t think Michigan will legalize same-sex marriage by the time of the next election cycle, it could be possible within six years. He and Earls have discussed marriage, and would be disappointed to have to leave the state if they decided to get married before the state makes marriage legal.

“Both of us were born and raised here, we’ve gone to school here,” Holland said. “We both have pride in our state and we love our state. It’s not only inconvenient, but it’s nothing that weighs us down. We just wish it wasn’t that way … It’s something you hope for.”

Originally Published: 06/23/09 11:23pm

Commentary:

Tak

06/24/09 4:25am

There has been a massive generational shift on this issue. People over 30 are divided on the issue of same sex marriage, but most people under 30 really don’t see what the big deal is. This trend will follow in the next generation, and so on.

In other words, before too long, resistance to gay marriage will quite literally die off.

Sometimes justice comes with the sword, sometimes the scythe.

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