Editor, The Times:

In a sleepy but changing region of the South, churchgoers are divided on issues such as same-sex marriage, and gays as church members and leaders. But congregations have learned to agree to disagree, and individual churches are more or less able to cope with the differing religious attitudes of their members on a church-by-church basis, emphasizing "communications and decision-making skills". That's in North Carolina, and that's in the feature article in our Jan. 14th San Mateo Times Religion page.

A day earlier, we heard from enlightened Palmdale, CA, from no less a personage than one Assemblyman Pete Knight, who has clearly had enough from soft liberal states such as Hawaii. According to an AP article, Knight has just introduced a bill to prevent California from recognizing same-sex marriages, even when legally performed in other states.

If California can legally refuse to honor marriages and other contracts performed in other states, there is nothing to stop other states, if they choose, from dishonoring ours. But Knight's interests have nothing to do with reciprocal states agreements.

The state's financial interest in this is minuscule. Any married couple can confirm the voter bloc "financial benefits" of the marriage license are not so advantageous today, and actually work to the disadvantage of some couples. But Knight's interests have nothing to do with finances.

The state's legal interest in this is speculative and presumptuous. Since California does not recognize gay or lesbian marriage anyway, Knight's bill serves only as an ill-advised spoiler for same-sex couples seeking California recognition of a contractual bond between them. Knight's problem is that states normally honor marriage contracts performed in other states. His solution is to dishonor the unwritten contract between the states.

Knight's cited reason was "legal and financial", to "foster the best conditions for raising kids", saying it wasn't right "to give same-sex couples the same economic benefits meant to aid families raising children". Many of these "benefits" already cover childless couples and unmarried parents, so children aren't the real issue, either. Those few adoptive gay and lesbian parents in this state are generally excluded from the umbrella which covers those raising children under any other possible conditions. Knight seeks to single out same-sex couples, to deny them any possible benefit of a contract and the specific individual rights that go with it, such as rights of household partnership, inheritance, surviving beneficiary, and power of attorney.

Knight is serving warning that this state proposes to both deny and pre-empt civil rights, even when bestowed by another state, when and as it bloody well feels like it.

This bill is a blotch to the reputation of both parties, and to this state. All gay people will of course be affronted by this "poisoning of the well", which is the bill's obvious purpose. Every Californian should see a larger threat, in giving back to the legislature a power to declare "open season" on any population target group against which it may muster a vote and a slim tide of public antipathy. This bill goes far beyond even fundamental civil rights concerns in its quest for arbitrarily punitive divisiveness. It must be stopped.

© Alex Forbes , La Parola ONLINE January 12, 1996