Friends, gay marriage is here. In the US, it?s the law of the land in six states and the District of Columbia. It will continue to be fought as a bloody battle state by state unless or until there is a national solution via the Supreme Court, but the young are for it and, having been defined as a civil rights issue, our nation?s history underscores that those advancing the case will ultimately be the victors. Since I have no taste for slow, bloody state battles, nor do I think a patchwork quilt of marriage law is sustainable, and I think it?s ridiculous for your state government to say you?re married and your national government to say you?re not, I truly hope that the national solution from the Supreme Court is gay marriage for all.
Since 2004, when the Goodridge case launched a national debate about same sex marriage, I have agonized. I don?t use that word lightly. Truly, pretty much everything painful in my work life and often in other parts of my life for the last eight years has had something to do with the gay marriage debate.
In 2004, my best friend since college was still my best friend. We had already had one difficult conversation about my very cautiously-shared concern that her future plan to?use a sperm donor to have a child with her partner might not be fair to the child. My friend had grown up with her father in her daily life and I had not. I felt she had an enormous blind spot. I had been happy to be her friend when she was dating guys, as when we met, and happy to be her friend when she loved women instead. I followed her to Seattle because I wanted to be near her; I went to divinity school because I got the idea from her. But when I followed my conscience and my questions into the heart of the matter for me, of how people feel when they are deliberately denied knowledge of or a relationship with their biological fathers via sperm donation, she decided she could no longer be my friend. I still dream about her with regularity, and I miss her, and yes I?m still angry and hurt, too.
I have agonized because I grew up with a single mother who had gay and lesbian friends, and with at least one friend of my own whose mom was lesbian, and because I worked with and went to school with people who happened to be gay or lesbian who I liked and respected and hung out with. At least one of these young men was beaten on the street for ?looking gay,? and I agonized for him. In the course of my life, there are at least two women I have loved and desired and can imagine, if things had worked out differently, that I might have spent my life with. As it happens, I went for the conventional path, married a good man and am raising our children with him, grateful every day that so far we have been able to provide our children with what I did not have: their mom and dad present and accounted for, a team of two grown ups who would die for them who are there for them every day.
I have agonized because if gay marriage was simply about the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons, I would be all for it. It?s not gay marriage itself that concerns me. What concerns me, deeply, are the laws and altered norms that follow gay marriage in every place where it is instituted?laws and norms that are necessary to perpetuate the legal fiction that children aren?t really born of a man and a woman who, by virtue of the child?s birth, become the child?s father and mother. Like in Canada, where after instituting same sex marriage the federal government removed all references to ?natural parents? for all children in Canadian law, replacing them with ?legal? parents. Like in Massachusetts, where advocates requested that birth certificates for all children in the state say ?Parent 1 and Parent 2? rather than ?mother? and ?father??as has happened in Spain and is now proposed in France. Like in Britain where the ?need for a father? clause was dropped from regulations governing fertility treatment, and in Denmark where a law was passed to allow free artificial insemination for lesbian couples (in Britain and Denmark these took place after civil partnership legislation, not even full marriage rights). Like in Norway, where the law affirming rights to same-sex marriage also affirms the right for lesbian women to have access to artificial insemination.
Of course, heterosexuals started use of third party (sperm or egg ?donation? or surrogacy) methods to conceive children, and single heterosexual women as well as lesbian women and couples started openly using them in about the 1980s. Previously, to question use of such technologies was to be charged with insensitivity to infertile people and single women whose biological clock was running out. But at least a real public debate could be had. Now, to question use of such technologies is to be anti-gay. And guess what? Being charged with being anti-gay silences a lot of people.
What?s being lost in the silence? Real recognition that our fellow citizens include not?only a minority of gay and lesbian persons but also a minority of persons conceived via sperm or egg donation and surrogacy. Sperm donation, especially, has been around a long time. There are many adults in the US and around the world who were conceived this way who are telling their stories and being studied. They are a diverse lot, but one thing they largely agree on is that anonymity in sperm donation is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Gay marriage is here. But I beg those of you who advocate for gay marriage, especially those who are gay or lesbian, to consider the plight of your fellow citizens who must contend with questions like: Who is my biological father, and where is he? Why does the state enforce contracts I did not sign which say I am not allowed to know his identity? Why did my mother/s who I love deliberately deny me knowledge of my biological father? Why was money involved in my conception? How many half-siblings do I have? Where are they? Is my biological father dead or alive? What genetic diseases may be manifested in his life now?that would be vital for me or my children to know about? What is my heritage on my father?s side? Why do people tell me I am spoiled or insensitive or crazy when I have these questions? Why does the nation in which I live tell me I have no right to the answers to these questions?
Gay and lesbian friends, you are getting gay marriage. While I remain angry and hurt about the way this debate has been conducted, I am truly happy for you. I want you to have rich, full lives. I want you to feel you live in a society that recognizes your dignity as human persons and the worth of your relationships. I want the children you are raising to grow up in stable families.
And I also want justice for my friends who are donor conceived persons.
Will you join me in this cause? You who know the pain of secrecy and living in lies and being told you don?t matter and you should not speak up: can you bring all you have learned and your powerful arguments to the cause of donor conceived persons?
Let?s form a vital national coalition to join other nations in Europe and around the world and end anonymity in third party reproduction in America.
Can I count on you? Comment below or write me here, and join the next major civil rights movement in America.
Categories: Marriage, The Future of Parenthood
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