I’d like to welcome new writer Leslie Basden to AWOP’s GLBTQ page.  Leslie is a writer and a substance abuse counselor who works primarily with male inmates and parolees coming through the criminal justice system.  She resides with her long time partner (and now spouse) and is second mother to their grown daughter.

I admit that I’m still reeling from the voters’ setting aside of equal marriage rights for Maine citizens exactly as California voters did in 2008.  Maine even blocked the implementation of equal rights until citizens had an opportunity to vote on the question.  In California, thousands of marriages took place during 2008, and mine was one of them.  When California took up the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the west coast version of Maine’s Question 1, the California Supreme Court refused to annul the same-sex marriages that took place while it was legal in that state.  Eighteen thousand same-sex California couples tied the knot in 2008.

It’s important to remember why many of us want this benefit, and there are a number of excellent reasons, and there are a few that we don’t speak about very often.  Let me explain my own reasons.

1.  Finance.  A recent New York Times article broke down the expected cost of living in same sex relationships without benefit of marriage rights, including health insurance, income tax, loss of social security payments, and medical care related to family creation.  “In our worst case,” the Times reports, “the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.”  We pay more and get less from our government than traditional couples, and it’s not pocket change.  And because women still do not receive equal pay for equal work, the financial situation for female couples is doubly damaged.

2.  Health.  I’m not talking about the cost of health insurance here.  The stress of living in a world of entrenched discrimination against us cannot be ignored.  In the PBS series, “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?” medical doctors and other researchers suggest that African-American babies have lower birth rates and more premature births, and this is attributed to a lifetime of racial discrimination against African-Americans.  African-American women who are well-off and take good care of themselves have a much higher rate of premature births and low birth weights than comparable white women.  Is it a stretch to think that discrimination against gay and lesbian people must also be negatively affecting our health?  How much does the stress of overt discrimination damage us?   How many of us suffer from addiction and other mental health problems compared to our straight counterparts?

3.  Suicide.  Anti-gay rhetoric and legislation affects our gay and lesbian children every day.  If we continue to accept the status quo and allow the discriminatory behavior of others to touch and manipulate the well-being of gay and lesbian children, the suicide rates of these kids will continue to remain outrageously and tragically high.  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey.  A 2007 San Francisco State University Chavez Center Institute study shows that LGBT and questioning youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. And for every completed suicide by a young person, it is estimated that 100 to 200 attempts are made (2003 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey).  Allowing same sex marriages to take place gives gay and lesbian children healthy role models and hope for their own happiness in adulthood.

4.  Secularity.  It is a blot on our history that some citizens are still treated unfairly in the name of organized religion.  No one’s religious beliefs should provide an excuse for discrimination.  If a person’s faith guides his or her personal behavior, I’m more than willing to support the right to live a particular way.  The same courtesy should be given to us.  Our beliefs guide our behavior, and most of us believe that how we live is consistent with our own values.

Today, these are the reasons I will continue to fight for marriage rights for all of us.  As with all struggles for equal rights, it will continue to be two steps forward and one step back.  It is the nature of the process, and I doubt we’d be able to make the kind of progress we are seeing today if those opposed to gay marriage weren’t so blatantly bigoted.  We need them to demonstrate how unreasonable they are with respect to our rights.  And we will win this war.