The generational disconnect on homosexual rights

Leaders of the fight against civil rights need to give up their crusade. Their notions of sin and sexuality belong in another era, to decades past when women could not vote, black people drank from designated fountains and gays and lesbians were beaten into false lives.

This generational disconnect was on full display the past couple of weeks as gray-haired legislators and salt-and-pepper-bearded pastors tried to deny a law that granted gays and lesbians the rights heterosexuals and minorities have long enjoyed.

It was significant that the civil-rights law passed largely because of a Gen-X Republican's vote. Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, was quoted from the Senate floor in The Seattle Times as saying, "We don't choose who we love. The heart chooses who we love. I don't believe it's right for us to say ... it's acceptable to discriminate against people because of that. I cannot stand with that argument."

The future of civil rights lies with Finkbeiner and other Gen-X and -Y politicians not yet elected. It will be important for this cohort to be active between now and November. That is when a misguided Tim Eyman referendum or initiative to undo what was done in Olympia could be on the ballot. No doubt the Eyman campaign will be loudly backed by the familiar faces of opposition, who will trot out the same tired reasons, too numerous and faulty to list here, to gain signatures.

One of the reasons used to try to tank any civil rights aimed at gays and lesbians is the claim that those rights will lead to same-sex marriage. On this point, the opposition is correct. Thank goodness. (Before moving on, let's drop the labels. The weddings I attend this summer will not be called "heterosexual" weddings and the people involved will not be in "hetero-marriages." So let's not label marriage as gay. Call it what it is: marriage).

Now that gays and lesbians have legal safeguards that grant them the same rights as the rest of us, it only makes sense that our state give all its adult citizens the right to marry. To not address this inequity would be wrong and perpetuate dated discrimination. Adding momentum to the debate is an expected ruling by the state Supreme Court on marriage.

What the defenders of virtue do not understand is the role marriage has played in the lives of younger generations. The "sanctity of marriage" has become a meaningless slogan when used to perpetuate morals in an age of divorce. We either grew up in a divorced family or had numerous friends whose parents' marriage habits were like those of dating, middle-school kids. Gays and lesbians certainly could do no worse.

Is the institution of marriage really going to suffer if gays and lesbians are allowed to make the decision to marry? Not a chance. Religious institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church, would not have to condone state-sanctioned marriage.

Not much has changed in heavily Catholic Massachusetts, where marriage was made legal for all by that state's Supreme Court in 2003. According to the National Vital Statistics Reports put out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, between the months of January and May in Massachusetts there were 6,753 divorces in 2003, 5,984 in 2004 and 5,137 in 2005. Marriages increased by about 1,000 during the same three years.

So what exactly is the threat? Seems to me the real threat to family is teaching intolerance. We are in an era of unrivaled global interaction that begs for understanding. If American children are taught that their friends and neighbors are a threat to the fiber of family, they cannot be expected to make the leap of comprehension needed to be a world citizen.

The disconnect is not excusable. What the gray-beards must realize is that my generation sees co-workers and friends in same-sex relationships. We watch sitcoms and movies with gay characters. We read novels where lesbians grace the pages. I was shocked by my first compact disc, not my first gay bar.

The elders need only to flip the issue and consider the future, a future of equality beyond them, but in the grasp of their children.

Ryan Blethen's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is rblethen@seattletimes.com