‘Equal treatment' is not situational

Dec. 10, 2006

VALLEY VOICES/Chuck Legge

My wife and I are going to celebrate our 22nd anniversary in February. When we were talking about getting married, there was some discussion about just living together. We could just keep going along as we had been without a formal ceremony.

My then girlfriend, now wife, is a very independent person and I was - actually, I still am - a flower-picking, om-chanting, navel-contemplating hippy. We didn't need a piece of paper to justify our relationship. We knew we were committed to each other, so why go through the prescribed rite?

Luckily, I was able to see through the incense haze and married this woman before she wised up. We became a conventional, contractual couple on Feb. 10, 1985. I know. If we waited just four days, we could have been married on Valentine's Day. But this fit better with our work schedules. Pretty romantic, eh?

The reason I'm asking you, the reader, to be polite and indulge me in this personal anecdote is I'm trying to make a point. My wife and I had a choice. We could get married, or not. This was our decision

to make.

We didn't need public referenda, constitutional amendments or special legislative sessions. We are married with all the personal and legal obligations and entitlements of that state. It is our right under the law to make that decision.

This all seems clearly obvious, but unfortunately this self-evident right does not exist for all people. Same-sex couples in Alaska do not have the right to marry. We've even made it the law of the land that they have to either marry someone they couldn't possibly be attracted to, or stay single.

I'm sure you remember all the rhetoric about saving the sanctity of marriage. After all, if two women get married, it could destroy the institution, and if two guys tie the knot, well, I can hear the apocalyptic hoof beats now. The simple fact is, if the legal commitment of two people is enough to damage your marriage, then same-sex nuptials probably aren't your biggest problem.

A couple of years ago, we decided that marriage in Alaska was going to be between one man and one woman, period. That's democracy in action. The people have spoken and that should be the end of it.

Actually, that's not the end

of it.

If making a law was all that was necessary, we might just as easily have said that marriage will be between one man, one woman and three goats. There's more to this form of government than just majority rule. Our democracy needs to be tempered with ample doses of reason, fairness and equality. Otherwise, we become a mob.

One of the best lines in the recent campaign came from independent candidate for governor Andrew Halcro, when he said, &#8220Democracy is more than two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.”

I think that sums it up pretty well.

I'm not here trying to force my personal values on everyone in the state. Individuals and groups should be able to believe whatever they want to believe.

No reasonable person is suggesting that we hold religions hostage and force them to perform marriage ceremonies they don't believe in.

Churches should be free to form their own belief systems. In fact, the state guarantees this freedom of belief, as long as acting on those beliefs doesn't directly impinge on the freedoms of others.

Our government not only protects the churches, it protects us from them.

Same-sex marriage wouldn't tear down the foundations of churches, because churches that didn't want to be involved wouldn't be. We're talking about civil ceremonies for people who may not have your predisposition, but who still are entitled to the same protections and rights you are.

Our new governor was sworn in a few days ago. She entered office in a spirit of honesty and integrity, and from what we've seen in the past, Sarah Palin is as good as her word.

We know from some of her statements about subsistence that she believes everyone should receive equal treatment under the law. If our new governor truly believes this, then maybe she should revisit this ill-conceived marriage ban. Otherwise we're just more wolves than sheep, and that sounds like mob rule to me.

Chuck Legge is a free-lance cartoonist whose work appears in every edition of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. His Valley Voices guest opinion column appears here very four weeks.