Debaters Mull Legal Aspects of Same-Sex Marriage

Scarcely two months after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom gave the go ahead to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses, the Institute of Governmental Studies hosted a panel to examine the continuing legal debate on the issue yesterday afternoon.

Panel participants debated whether it was wise to process legislation that would legalize gay marriage, in spite of voters' previous rejections of same-sex unions in Proposition 22.

"I'll trust the people rather than the courts," said Teresa Stanton Collett, a law professor at St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota.

Panel participants represented interests as diverse as those of Alan Chambers, a former homosexual, to those of Carole Migden, a former state assembly member who wrote domestic partnership legislation in the California Senate.

Chambers said if gay marriage had been legal in 1990, he would have married. But he argued that had he married, he would have never been able to make the willful choice to move forward and that legalization would prevent other homosexuals from doing the same.

But Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and an open lesbian, said that gay marriage was more about the dignity that comes from government recognition and respect.

Most panel participants agreed that civil unions, legal in some states, are not equal to marriage.

A marriage license grants heterosexual couples 1,138 rights and privileges from the federal government. But in a homosexual union, states can only grant about 300 rights and privileges, said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign.

Evan Gerstmann, a Loyola Marymount University political science professor, focused on the balance necessary between representing the majority that still opposes gay marriage and ensuring that homosexuals are guaranteed their rights.

Panel participants also differed on who should determine the legality of same-sex marriages-the courts, the voters or mayors and county supervisors like Gavin Newsom.

"It is the role of the courts to be the last vanguard against the wholesale trampling of human rights," Kendell said.

Both sides compared the current situation to previous civil rights struggles. Kendell described Newsom's defiance of state law as a provocative act, but others suggested that same-sex marriage would gain acceptance with time.

"People will look back at this moment and think, ‘What was the big deal?'" Stachelberg said.

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