In print | Published May 1, 2008 — Updated May 24, 2008 10:33

Yesterday, the newly elected Australian government announced that it would be taking steps to remove discrimination against queer couples in over 100 laws. This marks a drastic change for the nation, which previously discriminated against queer couples through taxes, pensions and government-services benefits. While the Australian government will be actively changing its laws to ensure more rights for a minority group, Pennsylvania’s state senate is set to continue along a regressive and discriminatory trajectory, as a result of recent legislation driven by a coalition of social conservatives.

Conservative and religious interest groups have successfully lobbied state representatives to propose an amendment to the state’s constitution that would define marriage as solely between one man and one woman. The proposed legislation, currently under consideration by the Appropriations Committee of the Pennsylvania Senate, will ban civil unions and same-sex marriage, or any functional equivalent. The structure of the legislation resembles the constitutional bans passed in 27 other states.

If enacted, the legislation would erode the rights and benefits already secured for queer couples in relationships that are the functional equivalent of marriage, in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Proponents of the ban argue that such legislation is needed in order to preserve the sanctity and stability of marriage. The larger argument at stake here is one that says that queer relationships should not be state-sanctioned because they are unhealthy and that two consenting adults who love each other cannot be happy together.

Social conservatives need to recognize that people can be happy in relationships that do not conform to conventional gender constructs. Marriage is not an inherently heteronormative institution, and in our purportedly open, democratic society, individuals should have the freedom to partner with whomever they choose.

It is time for every state, that has not already acted, to move in the direction chosen by Massachusetts, South Africa, Spain, Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands in supporting same-sex marriages. Passing this legislation will not stop people from engaging in relationships with each other and will not stop the tide of change forever.

Those who invoke the sanctity of marriage argument would be wise to recall that the same argument was used 50 years ago to obstruct proposals for the legalization of interracial marriage. When interracial marriages were not legal, those commitments were not any less real except in the civil sense. Marriage represents a monogamous commitment to another person, and that commitment can be made regardless of the nomenclature of the given society.

It is not enough to hope for change, to hope that the elected leaders of the state of Pennsylvania will realize that the argument against marriage equality depends on entrenched homophobia and emotionally charged religious denunciations. We must rise up against these kinds of obstacles, and work to thwart this legislation from going any further.

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