No Valentine's Day in Michigan

Carl lives in Michigan. He's a gentle, caring man, a hard worker and a good friend. Yet, this year there won't be any Valentine's Day for him and his partner. According to a Michigan court, Carl's relationship doesn't really exist.

Like many conscientious breadwinners, Carl wants to provide health insurance benefits for his partner, but unlike most, he cannot do so. Three Michigan judges recently decided that Devon, Carl's same sex life partner is not entitled to such benefits.

Homophobia has become a raging force in this country. During the tenure of this administration it has expressed itself with increasing aggressiveness and has managed to wheedle its way into our legal language with dire consequences.

Somehow, I can muster some vague understanding for folks who shy away from extending the sanctity of marriage to relationships they just can't understand. I don't agree with them, because I don't think it is our business to decide which consenting adults are allowed to wed and which ones aren't. But in the context of their intense paranoia, I can understand them. But, how can any decent human being deny a family man the right to provide financial benefits for the one he loves?

I think a line has been crossed. The literal interpretation of the constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage has grown horns and cloven hoofs. I see no rational reason to insist on downgrading a same-sex relationship to a sleazy backstreet affair. Carl and Devon have lived together in a devoted partnership for over fifteen years. They have shared good times and bad, prosperity and poverty, in sickness and in health. To deny the legitimacy of their union is insulting and ludicrous. To deny them their god-given right to provide for each other is spiteful and unnecessary.

If it placates and pacifies Michigan residents to call such a relationship something other than a marriage, perhaps they should come up with a defining term. And then they should hasten to write laws to protect same-sex partners from court-inflicted poverty and devastation by allowing gay men and women to provide financial benefits for their loved ones. As we stand today, gay folks are placed way below the separate-but-equal position. Discrimination against them is reaching embarrassing levels.

Most of us take it for granted that our place of employment accepts our marital status and thus accepts and respects our spouses. Carl and Devon don't have that luxury. Carl's health insurance covers only him, and Devon, who works part time outside the home and full time as a homemaker, has no coverage. And why? Because the court won't allow it. Because Devon is a man. Where is the justice in that?

Court data from Associated Press