I talked with Pamela Brown, national policy director of Marriage Equality USA about why same-sex marriage is important, and the status of the fight to get it legalized all over the United States.
Pamela Brown
Brown described how same-sex marriage benefits society in many ways. “Mostly, the stronger that our family structures are, the more we are able to support and protect each other. That’s not just a benefit for us as individuals, it benefits for society as a whole. It makes our communities stronger and allows us the opportunity to prosper the way we need to,” Brown said.
Civil unions, with all the legal rights of marriage, but without the name, are an alternative to same-sex marriage. But they’re not good enough, Brown said.
She cited the example of her own relationship: she and her spouse have been together nearly 14 years. After five years, they registered as domestic partners, with a commitment ceremony. But friends, family, and the community found it confusing, people don’t really know what a “domestic partnership” is.
Last year, Brown and her partner married. “The way we were treated after that– I was surprised. People pretty well know we’re together, we’ve been together a long time and involved in supporting this issue of marriage equality. But when you can go out and say ‘we’re married,’ people get it. We were treated differently by the businesses we dealt with, whether it was the insurance company or jewelers or just talking to neighbors and co-workers.
“We said we got married and the first thing they said was ‘congratulations,’” Brown said. “When we said we registered as domestic partners, they said, ‘What does that mean?’
“Marriage is something that’s understood and very important in society, and civil unions and domestic partnerships will never be the same thing.”
That was just a few minutes of our discussion. We also talked about the legal and political work being done to get same-sex marriage recognized In California and Maine and other states, as well as on a federal level. We talked about whether it’s fair to decide the issue in the courts, and whether legalizing same-sex marriage would infringe the rights of religions that consider same-sex marriage wrong.
And don’t forget: Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation is our guest Sunday. Join us for the live interview. Hope to see you there!
