April 15, 2005
Parallel But Equal?
'Oregonian' Plays Word Games
First of all, we should say up front that we agree with this Meg Daly post over at Citizens Blog that as things stand now, supporters of marriage equality indeed should back the creation of civil unions law in Oregon.
But what we want to focus on for a moment is a bit she includes towards the end, because it leads us into something we've discussed here before.
What will it mean for America if more and more states have two-tiered systems of relationship recognition – one for straights, one for gays? Sounds a little like separate-but-equal to me, and thus constitutionally unsound and ripe for legal challenge.
Which brings us to today's Oregonian editorial, in which they also express support for civil unions. But, of course, they always have, since they never were supporters of actual marriage equality -- or, for that matter, the infinitely preferable solution of instituting civil unions for all couples, removing the religiously-charged word "marriage" from the law altogether.
But the point we wanted to make was one of the paper's use of language, wherein they dodge the problem of "separate but equal" being in reality inherently unequal by using phrases such as "parallel protections" and "a system of protections that parallel marriage" instead.
It's a nice attempt to use the veil of cleverly-chosen words to hide what the editorial board has always supported: Nothing more than an inherently-unequal "separate but equal" status for gays and lesbian couples. Linguistic tricks can't hide that.
Comments (1)
Meg Daly on 16 Apr 2005
I couldn't agree more. Thanks for bringing up this point, bix!