(I'm posting (*not* cross-posting!) this also to soc.couples)

Anna Quindlen's column in today's (2/5/92) New York Times,
reprinted without permission:

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Evan has two moms.  This is no big thing.  Evan has always had
two moms -- in his school file, on his emergency forms, with
his friends.  "Ooooh, Evan, you're lucky," they sometimes say.
"You have two moms."  It sounds like a sitcom, but until last
week it was emotional truth without legal bulwark.  That was
when a judge in New York approved the adoption of a 6-year-old
boy by his biological mother's lesbian partner.  Evan.  Evan's
mom.  Evan's other mom.  A kid, a psychologist, a pediatrician.
A family.

The matter of Evan's two moms is one in a series of events over
the last year that lead to certain conclusions.  A Minnesota
appeals court granted guardianship of a woman left a
quadriplegic in a car accident to her lesbian lover, the
culmination of a seven-year battle in which the injured woman's
parents did everything possible to negate the partnership
between the two.  A lawyer in Georgia had her job offer
withdrawn after the State Attorney General found out she and
her lesbian lover were planning a marriage ceremony; she's
brought suit.  The computer company Lotus announced that the
gay partners of employees would be eligible for the same
benefits as spouses.

Add to these public events the private struggles, the couples
who go from lawyer to lawyer to approximate legal protections
their straight counterparts take for granted, the AIDS
survivors who find themselves shut out of their partners' dying
days by biological family members and shut out of their
apartments by leases with a single name on the dotted line, and
one solution is obvious.

Gay marriage is a radical notion for straight people and a
conservative notion for gay ones.  After years of being sledge-
hammered by society, some gay men and lesbian women are deeply
suspicious of participating in an institution that seems to
have "straight world" written all over it.

But the rads of 20 years ago, straight and gay alike, have other
things on their minds today.  Family is one, and the linchpin of
family has commonly been a loving commitment between two adults.
When same-sex couples set out to make that commitment, they
discover that they are at a disadvantage.

No joint tax returns.  No health insurance coverage for an
uninsured partner.  No survivor's benefits from Social Security.
None of the automatic rights, privileges and responsibilities
society attaches to a marriage contract.  In Madison, Wis., a
couple who applied at the Y with their kids for a family
membership were turned down because both were women.  It's one
of those small things that can make you feel small.

Some took marriage statutes that refer to "two persons" at
their word and applied for a license.  The results were court
decisions that quoted the Bible and embraced circular argument:
marriage is by definition the union of a man and a woman
because that is how we've defined it.

No religion should be forced to marry anyone in violation of
its tenets, although ironically it is now only in religious
ceremonies that gay people can marry, performed by clergy who
find the blessing of two who love one another no sin.  But
there is no secular reason that we should take a patchwork
approach of corporate, governmental and legal steps to
guarantee what can be done simply, economically, conclusively
and inclusively with the words, "I do."

"Fran and I chose to get married for the same reasons that any
two people do," said the lawyer who was fired in Georgia.  "We
fell in love; we wanted to spend our lives together."  Pretty
simple.

Consider the case of Loving v. Virginia, aptly named.  At the
time, 16 states had laws that barred interracial marriage,
relying on natural law, that amorphous grab bag for justifying
prejudice.  Sounding a little like God throwing Adam and Eve
out of paradise, the trial judge suspended the one-year
sentence of Richard Loving, who was white, and his wife,
Mildred, who was black, provided they got out of the state of
Virginia.

In 1967, the Supreme Court found such laws to be unconstitutional.
Only 25 years ago and it was a crime for a black woman to marry a
white man.  Perhaps 25 years from now we will find it just as
incredible that two people of the same sex were not entitled to
legally commit themselves to one another.  Love and commitment are
rare enough; it seems absurd to thwart them in any guise.
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rod williams -=- pacific bell -=- san francisco -=- rjwill6@pacbell.com