Marriage Equality as a step on the road of reform, not a final destination

The discussion on gay marriage has been in the forefront of my little sphere of social media lately, especially with this case being in the news.

I've already been asked by one person why I haven't changed my facebook photo to the big red equal sign everyone in support of gay marriage is using for a public statement on the issue. I've already had to explain that it isn't because I don't support equal treatment of various partnerships. It's because I don't support "marriage" in the U.S. as it exists and is treated today, and I don't support federal use of the word marriage.

My argument for the latter:

The first amendment of the United States Constitution is often paraphrased with "separation of church and state." That's not what it says, but what it does say tells me that the state cannot use a religious term and dictate what it does or does not mean. The first half of the first sentence in the text of the first amendment is as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

The meaning of this is that the government may neither force upon the populace a religious doctrine, nor force upon the church a secular doctrine. The government may not make a legal standard strictly dependent on a religious standard, and the government may not restrict the religious from adopting among themselves and adhering to a religious standard.

If our government is going to use and recognize a term to describe a legally binding agreement between adults to form an intimate partnership, application of the first amendment dictates that the term cannot 1) require the partners to adhere to religious doctrine in order to make the agreement, or 2) require the religious to admit into their existing definition of the term a status or standard which is contrary to their doctrines. Using the word marriage, the government would have to do one or the other.

I was unable to take a position on this until a few years ago, when I first heard suggestion that the term Civil Union be used for same sex partnerships. My first and consistent thought on this has been, why just same sex partnerships? The term has no religious connotations. Use of it would not inflict upon any group the religious subtext that goes with the term "marriage," which really doesn't cover open partnerships, same sex partnerships, polyamory, or any other arrangement which doesn't fit into the strict religious use of the word.

Government use of the term Civil Union for all legally bound intimate partnerships would not prevent people from calling their partnerships marriages. It wouldn't stop churches from having wedding ceremonies using the term "marriage" or its variants. It wouldn't stop communities from referring to partners as spouses, husbands, or wives. It wouldn't change what goes on in the home, in the workplace, among family members, among friends. It wouldn't stop religious partners from adhering to religious tenets related to their partnership.
It would only keep the citizens and our civil servants from having to choose between inflicting a religious standard on a government action (recognition of a legally binding agreement) or secularizing a religious term, and would therefore invalidate religious objection to inclusion of currently excluded groups from the access to government sanction for their partnerships.

I honestly do not understand why this has not been previously suggested at the state or federal level. It is such a simple solution to the debate: Because the objections to the use of "marriage" to describe same sex partnerships are religious, we should simply stop using religious terms to denote government recognition of any intimate partnership.

My argument against government-sanctioned, government regulated marriage in general, on the other hand, is a little more negative. I will start with the fact that yes, I am a married woman, and I am not going to give that up because of this argument. My husband and I have a great partnership because we put ourselves into it, and we put each other first. Our marriage isn't just about how we feel about each other. It's about having goals together, having a committed interest in each other's welfare, each other's success, each other's happiness, and each other's experiences, each of us having that relationship to the other as part of our accepted identity. We don't focus on fairness. We don't focus on 'what's in it for me.' We focus on enjoying our lives together.

That's not to say that we don't also have separate interests. We're still individuals, not joined at the hip. I'm a men's rights activist with libertarian leanings. He's not politically active at all, but he fully supports my interest in politics. He's a prolific artist and hobbyist, always working on interesting projects. I'm not generally involved in his creative endeavors, but I fully support his efforts. We take pride in our own accomplishments, and in each other's accomplishments. We have friends in common, and separate friends. Our separate interests do not take precedence over our home, our family, or any aspect of our connection with each other, and we do not allow any interest to jeopardize our connection to each other. There is nothing either of us can do or have that is worth inflicting hurt or even risking inflicting hurt on the other.

That's not a balance that just happens. We work for it. We sacrifice for it. Sometimes, we suffer for it. Sometimes, the effort required involves keeping our attention on a bigger goal than the immediately obvious one. When we do not agree on a topic or issue, discussion happens with a subtext. No matter what the argument may be, it's made with the fact in mind that each of us is talking to that person to whose welfare, success, happiness, and experiences we're committed, not an individual whose relationship to us is scant and shallow. When we talk to each other, we're applying a sculpting knife to the structure of our relationship, and we're mindful of that, taking care to continue to shape it for strength, endurance, intimacy, and (to us) beauty, and to not cut chunks from the supporting foundation, slice away the defining features, or tack on distracting, ruinous scraps.

Again, there is nothing either of us can ask or insist that is worth inflicting hurt or even risking inflicting hurt on the other. It doesn't mean we can't get frustrated or impatient during a disagreement. It means that feeling that way is not an excuse for either of us to lash out at the other. It means taking the time and making the effort to better communicate, and listen to each other, and arrive at an understanding even when we can't arrive at an agreement. And it means knowing and trusting in each others' strengths, and knowing and accepting our own weaknesses, so that we each know when to capitulate and fall back on the other's judgement, even if we feel adamant about the point. When issues come up that are deeper or broader than we're accustomed to confronting, and we have the occasional slip-up, we have to be ready to admit our roles in that. We each have to be able to admit, I screwed up. I was selfish, arrogant, careless, short-sighted... whatever lapse in effort and judgement led to the failure to adhere to the formula that has made our partnership last. And it can't be something only one partner does for the benefit of the other. We both have to be honest in our self-assessment for the benefit of the relationship. Nobody can always be right, and nobody can always be the one to compromise.

I will fully admit that we sometimes drive our circle of friends and family nuts. We're obnoxious. We finish each other's sentences. We flirt like we haven't been together all this time. We hold hands and kiss in public. We go on dates. We giggle at each other about inside jokes like teenagers. We razz each other like buddies. We get asked "How long have you guys been together?" and answer honestly, "not all that long... just fifteen years." It doesn't seem that long to us, especially when we have seen family celebrating 50th and even 75th anniversaries. It seems like an eternity from the outside, in today's 'disposable relationship' environment. 

Looking around, I don't see that level of effort in a lot of other marriages, or a lot of other relationships. My peers don't just discuss things with their partners and come to a conclusion or stasis; they fight. Often, partners end up fighting like siblings or even enemies, totally losing sight of their concern and consideration for each other during a conflict, lashing out like they're dealing with someone they do not love. Outside the home, they are focused on themselves; their careers, their hobbies, their political or religious interests, their outside relationships, their continued desirability. This leads to hurtful, selfish behavior that chips away at the foundation of their relationship with their partner, and pollutes the structure with extraneous factors. It is very common to see people put everything from their own interests before the unity of their partnership, and still expect the partnership to work. That's not productive, and it isn't ever going to be.

The people I see working hardest at their long-term partnerships, the ones whose focused, concerted efforts are on their partnerships and their families, are those whose relationships aren't taken for granted. Those who haven't had legal wedding ceremonies or whose relationships have been under attack, who have to fight back against a tide of disapproval or destructive effort, have had to do what we do. They've had to make their relationships their highest-rated personal interests. They've had to put up a partnered resistance to the potentially damaging effects of outside influences. They've had to accept compromise, to rely on each other, to refine themselves in terms of their ability to team up, and to assert their unity upon an environment which is continually assailing it with toxic elements. That environment breaks relationships like a ship slammed against a rocky shore when the partners involved do not maintain a level of commitment to each other that is sufficient to resist the natural opposing forces life presents. It strengthens relationships when the partners involved determine to be that committed and follow through with that determination.

Too often, people treat the marriage ceremony as the conclusion to a journey instead of a step into the next phase of it. They get on the boat, but don't expect it to ever sail on rough waters or through rough weather, or they expect to be able to sail it in separate directions, and they end up fighting over the helm. When they hit those rough times, they fail to work together to stay afloat, and they end up shipwrecked, clinging to the flotsam and jetsam of their shattered partnership, plunged into the icy and shark-infested waters of government sanctioned, government regulated divorce.

Government involvement seems to reduce everything it touches, bringing the standard down to the lowest, the laziest, the least considered, the least attended. The more involved the law becomes in an institution or aspect of human behavior, the more easily decayed and corrupted that aspect becomes. The problems that cause this are fairly simple; the larger the group to which a set of standards and conditions must be applied, the less likely those standards and conditions will be to fit everyone in the group, and the more likely it is that some within that group will evade or seek to avoid those standards and conditions. The larger the area over which an authority has power and responsibility, the easier and more tempting it is to abuse that power and neglect that responsibility, especially when social conditions and standards contribute to a lack of oversight where that authority is concerned, as is the case with government interaction in domestic relations. Abuse of such systems becomes easier and more tempting as they are more broadly applied and shallowly overseen.

The family court system in the United States is nothing short of a massive, community-encompassing train wreck, the fallout from which has impacted upon everything from individual family relationships to society as a whole. It is the executing agent of our society's greatest disaster outside of war, having destroyed from the inside some aspects of the strength and unity of our nation's populace. It has enabled and encouraged animosity between political groups, social groups, the genders, the sexualities, and the religious vs the secular. It incentivizes surrender in the face of adversity by paying a segment of the relationship's partnership to quit and move on, regardless of the value in the relationship, and the result has been a generation to generation decline in the structure of the family such that it has become more 'normal' to have a broken family than a united family, as  individuals within the population are no longer conditioned to cooperate and collaborate on achieving and maintaining united relationships. That entire system really needs to be dismantled, laid bare, and disempowered to make room for a more functional, less intrusive, less imposing system, but chances are that is not going to happen until we reach such a state of crisis that the mishandling of domestic partnerships and family law can no longer be ignored by the general public.

While this doesn't lead me to advocate treating same sex partnerships and other ways of life differently in terms of acceptance and acknowledgement, or in terms of the law, it is reason for concern over the potential consequences of inflicting upon these communities the conditions that come with government involvement in their relationships. Not that these relationships should ever be considered less valid, less deserving of recognition and rights, less committed, or less serious... I simply fear that expanding the current government handling of family relationships without addressing the problems inherent in the system will have more of a destructive effect than a benevolent one.

I believe that the effort to reform the government's involvement in human relationships needs to include both goals; the push to eliminate prejudice against relationships which do not fall into the currently accepted, religiously dictated standard for government acknowledgement, and the push to stem the tide of government poisoning of the spirit of human partnerships with incentives to eschew commitment and embrace conflict. I don't want to see the horrors of modern American divorce court inflicted upon those families within the currently excluded communities which remain strong through the long haul. I want to see the return of healthy functionality to modern American relationships brought in with the reform that eliminates their exclusion from social acceptance.

I support partnership equality, but I do not support polluting the currently excluded communities with the straight community's existing dysfunction. Reform of the government's recognition of and involvement in citizens' intimate partnerships absolutely needs to happen. But please, do not for a moment think that expanding the current model to include currently excluded communities is the solution. While expansion of legal acknowledgement and protection of partner relationships is a step that needs taken, it's vital to the welfare of American society that we don't treat it as a final step.

We will still have a long way to go.

This is the 21st century. We should already be past the point of arguing whether that step needs taken or not. It's time to get over our ridiculous, puerile arguments over religious opinion vs social behavior, accept the antiquity of the current system, and redefine government involvement in intimate partnerships in terms of civil law rather than religious doctrine: Adopt "Civil Union" as the government term for recognition of an intimate partnership, and eliminate religious criteria as required conditions for recognition. Create a standard set of conditions applicable to a civil union, and make allowances for variations on those conditions as long as those variations are put into writing and accepted by the involved partners. Stipulate that unless otherwise specified in writing by the involved partners, the contract qualifies them as partners for any benefits or conditions which apply to family units, such as joint financial status, insurance status, responsibility for the family's care of involved minors, ownership, control, and inheritance of property, and involvement in the medical care of one's partner (such as right of visitation and ability to authorize emergency care). Set up basic default standards for areas which can lead to legal dispute, and let individual families decide whether to alter these stipulations for their specific agreements, and how other aspects of their partnership are to be handled.

Once that step is out of the way, we as a society can begin working toward minimizing government involvement in and influence upon intimate partnerships, so that its destructive influence may be diminished and contained. Until we are able to acknowledge that we must do that, striving for "marriage equality" will only mean dragging currently excluded partnerships out into the storm with the rest of us, rather than pulling them under an umbrella of benevolence and protection.

Letter to Representatives on the topic of VAWA abuse and VAWA reform

Update: originally, I wrote my state's Senators on this topic. I've now written my area representative, and another Ohio representative on the topic. I have slightly condensed the letter for easier reading, though as you can see it remains detailed (and again, I've omitted the county names, replaced by Xs to avoid giving away my specific location.

Sent 2/12/13

From 2006 until recently, I was a witness in a bizarre case in which a woman falsely used the XXXX and XXXX county justice systems (police, court, and the victim's advocacy system) as weapons to abuse her ex-husband, who was (and still is) married to a close friend of mine.

Following a change of custody due to her neglect, the woman began falsely accusing her ex-husband of stalking, aggression, and physical abuse. Those of us who know the family knew the allegations were false not just because of the man's good character, but because the women accused him of actions at times when he and his wife happened to have friends over at their house, all of whom could plainly see that he was there.

It started out small, and we foolishly expected it to be over quickly. The first time the police came to the house, those of us who knew the family figured out that this was a tactic the false accuser was employing to try to regain custody of their child, lost to the falsely accused because the accuser's current husband had viciously abused the child. Since the accuser was lying, we all figured that the evidence would be all that was necessary to clear the accused's name and let the family move on with their lives.

We were wrong.

After her first false allegation was shot down, she leveled another... and another... and another... it just kept going and going. From beginning to end, the criminal allegations part of the ordeal lasted over 5 years.

As the case progressed, a pattern quickly emerged. The accuser's method was to go to the courthouse first, instead of the police. There, she would profess fear of her ex-husband and obtain a Temporary Restraining (Civil Protection) Order. A hearing would be set for a date 30 days later. During that 30 days, she would at some point falsely accuse her ex of violating the order.

Following each allegation, the false accuser would then motion for the restraining order hearing to be postponed, often giving flimsy reasons or no reason at all. She wanted the alleged violation heard first because even if the restraining order was overturned, if she got a conviction in the alleged violation, that would remain on record. If the restraining order hearing went first and the restraining order was overturned, the charge for allegedly violating it, if nonviolent, would be dropped.

Because she knew she did not have a legitimate case for the restraining order, the false accuser pushed for the allegations. She knew that if she caught him without a provable alibi, she'd get a conviction regardless of guilt or innocence. The accused responded by requesting the alleged violation case be continued until after the restraining order hearing, to avoid having to go to trial twice when once would suffice.

In one instance, the two played continuance tag for a year - meaning that the false accuser had a 30-day temporary restraining order in place for an entire year. This involved repeated juggling of court dates.

Eventually, the false accuser even began citing her previous false allegations as evidence that her current false allegations were legitimate, the logic being that a man accused that many times must be guilty of something, even though the accusations had all been proved false, and had all come from the same person.

The case became completely ridiculous, evolving into textbook malicious prosecution. A vexatious litigation complaint was filed against the false accuser, who frequently represented herself in court. That complaint got "lost" in the system for 2 years before the victim's lawyer pushed it forward by threatening to sue for violation of his right to a speedy trial. On the good end of it, during those two years, the accuser provided her victim with a lot more evidence for the vexatious litigant case. On the bad end, she almost killed him with the stress, elevating serious symptoms of physical ailments that he had under control prior to her harassment of him.

According to the attorney for the accused, this tactic is one she has seen consistently and frequently employed by women in divorce/custody cases, with the active assistance and encouragement of the local VAWA-funded domestic abuse victim's advocacy system. The tactic, when used successfully, virtually guarantees women favorable rulings in family court.

For the latter half of the ordeal, the ex-husband's friends (including myself) rallied an effort to keep watch on him so that no matter where he went or what he did, there would be a credible witness. We knew that if she ever caught him alone, that would be it - in court, her word was worth more than his even though she was a proven liar. He spent a couple of years with literally no privacy outside of restroom use, during which she continued to level accusations.

At the same time as the malicious prosecution was being employed, the false accuser also stalked and harassed her alleged abuser and his family, leaving her empty cigarette packs at his family's home to show she'd been there, throwing poisoned toys and food over the fence for the family's pets. She stalked his extended family, including his sister, his underage niece, and his other witnesses.

Local police wouldn't do anything about the stalking because the woman was backed by the local VAWA-funded domestic abuse victim's advocate system. A judge did award the niece and sister restraining orders against the false accuser, but when the accuser violated those orders, local police refused to enforce them because of the domestic case and the support the local VAWA-funded domestic abuse advocacy group was giving to the false accuser. No charges were brought against the false accuser for the violation.

Let me repeat that: Police refused to enforce a restraining order following a violation of it, because the perpetrator had the support of the local VAWA-funded domestic abuse victim's advocacy group. Or, that can be re-worded for accuracy: The local VAWA-funded domestic abuse victim's advocacy group assisted the stalker of an underage girl in avoiding arrest and prosecution for violation of a protection order because they were assisting the stalker in her malicious prosecution of the child's uncle.

It took a monumental effort, but the false accuser is now on Ohio's list of vexatious litigants, and she is barred from taking any further legal action against her ex without a judge's prior approval.
Unfortunately, the vexatious litigant has continued her harassment of the family by other means. There has been no way found to put a stop to that behavior.

The combination of gender-specific language and funded incentives for arrest and prosecution in the Violence Against Women Act are the causes which led to this travesty of justice. Because a woman was accusing her ex-husband of abuse, regardless of the facts, regardless of the evidence, every part of the system is by law required to accommodate and act on her claims. This requirement continues even when there is a pattern of false allegations, even when the pattern itself is identifiable as a form of abuse (malicious prosecution.)

Further, the lack of accountability applied to VAWA-funded domestic abuse victim's advocacy groups with which the police and courts work on these cases leads to the groups advocating in favor of female accusers even after the accuser has clearly demonstrated a complete lack of credibility. In this case, advocates pressured police, prosecutors, and judges on behalf of a known and proved false accuser, causing significant hardship, distress, and stress-related health problems for the victim... and because it was the local domestic abuse victim's advocacy group helping his abuser, the victim had no place to turn for help.

These advocates even assisted the false accuser in fighting to avoid being placed on the vexatious litigant list, showing up in court with her for some of the hearings, and assisting her in preparing for the case. They successfully pressured local prosecutors to avoid charging the false accuser for any of her crimes related to this ordeal, which include filing false charges, perjury, stalking and harassment of her ex-husband and his witnesses, and violation of judge's orders (contempt of court.) She was even permitted to get away with violating a child support order for years, amassing some $8000.00 in debt from which she was partially released by a judge because of her refusal to work, (an unheard of ruling, had she been a man) all because she had the courtroom support and assistance of case workers from that VAWA-funded domestic abuse victim's advocacy organization.

The group SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) has written a brief with a set of reform principles, some of which, had they been in place, would have changed the progression of my friend's case. In particular, points 4 through 9, and point 11 would have been very helpful.

Save's Points listed at http://www.saveservices.org/pvra/vawa-reform-principles/

1. Treatment programs: Programs funded by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) ignore the most common causes of intimate partner violence: substance abuse, marital conflict, and psychological disorders. This makes it difficult for violence-prone persons to get help before the abuse escalates. Domestic violence programs should address the social and psychological causes of partner aggression.

2. Reconciliation: Many states prohibit couples counseling when abuse has been alleged. Partner reconciliation should be allowed when the counselor and victim believe counseling is desirable and safe.

3. Abuse shelters: Abuse shelters should give priority to victims of physical violence. Shelters should be staffed by personnel with appropriate training and expertise in crisis intervention, mental health, and substance abuse treatment.

4. Non-discrimination: VAWA should be refocused to include all victims of domestic violence, rather than singling victims out for special protection based on gender, sexual orientation, or other group status.

B. Criminal Justice Interventions:

5. Restraining orders: Restraining orders don’t deter determined abusers from harming their victims, and can lull victims into a false sense of security. Restraining orders should only be issued when there is objective and verifiable evidence of abuse.

6. Mandatory arrest: Mandatory arrest policies increase partner homicides by nearly 60%, according to a Harvard University study. VAWA should not award grants to jurisdictions with policies that promote arrest without probable cause.

7. Prosecution: Mandatory prosecution and prosecuting protection order violations may be linked to increases in partner homicides, research says. Prosecutors need to avoid ‘no-drop’ policies that ignore probable cause requirements.

8. Presumption of innocence: Criminal justice policies and procedures need to restore the presumption of innocence to the accused.

9. False allegations: False allegations can cause lifelong harm to the wrongfully accused, and rob victims of services, protections, and credibility. Perjurers need to be held accountable.

C. Other Issues:

10. Definitions: Because of expansive and vague definitions, minor incidents of partner conflict are being criminalized. In addition, victims of physical violence aren’t getting the priority they deserve. VAWA needs to restrict definitions of abuse.

11. Accountability: The Violence Against Women Act needs to institute strong transparency and accountability measures to stop waste and fraud.

12. Training and public awareness: Training and education programs should be based on sound science, not gender ideology.

Related to point 4: None of the other local domestic abuse victim's advocacy groups would help the victim in this case, because his abuser had the assistance of the most powerful group in the county, and these groups all cooperate with each other. This created a unified wall of dismissal, wherein he could not find anyone to help him escape the abuse.

Related to point 5 on restraining orders, I think men like my friend would be better protected from false accusers if accusers repeatedly requesting restraining orders were prevented from doing so without evidence. This could be accomplished by adding a stipulation that, once a judge has ruled a request for a restraining order unmerited, another one cannot be requested by the same accuser against the same person during the time period in which the order would have been in effect (5 years, in Ohio) without proof of an assault against the accuser by the person against whom the order is sought.

On points 6 & 7: By the end of the ordeal - even by the middle of it - it had become clear to everyone involved that the repeatedly accused man was not an abuser, and had done nothing to his ex-wife except gain protective custody of their daughter. Every police department near their home (multiple communities) as well as the local prosecutor's office, and the judges in two county courts, all knew the accuser was abusing the system. Nobody was able to stop her.

On point 8: Had the accuser been able to successfully choose a moment in time to level an accusation when the accused couldn't account for his whereabouts, it is likely that he would have been wrongfully convicted on her word, and manufactured evidence, and as a result falsely imprisoned. She knew this, and it is part of what encouraged her to continue her effort. Had she been required to prove her accusations, the case wouldn't have dragged on for so long.

On point 9, if demonstrably false accusers who commit perjury in the course of arguing their cases were subject to prosecution, that would create a deterrent which would reduce the number of women who would chose to abuse the system this way. If repeat offenders were jailed, then my friend's abuser would not have had the opportunity to continue to make false allegations for as long as she did. If she were found guilty of several counts of perjury, something which was possible after only a couple of hearings, imprisonment would have prevented her from continuing the behavior.

On point 11, I think that the advocates involved in these organizations would be less comfortable supporting abusers who use them this way if there were some means by which their actions could be known to the public, even if making those available entailed employing someone to scrub identifying information from their records. Public accountability is vital to keeping any government funded organization honest. In this case, the organization would not have been so quick to continue to support the accuser after she made admissions which demonstrated that she had been stalking the man she claimed to fear, as well as members of his family, facts which would be entirely inconsistent with her claim of being a victim of abuse. Even if those things would not have altered the course of events, the numerous times when her accusations were proved false by his evidence would have demonstrated the inappropriateness of continuing to advocate for further arrests.

The current version and proposed updates to the Violence Against Women act are too easily abused in the manner used against my friend, and in similar ways. The lack of oversight and transparency in the system created by this law has led to an environment in which gender is more important to the case than evidence.

Further, because the law is gender specific, it excludes victims who are not women, or who are not abused by men. While the law itself does not expressly dictate gender-specific assistance, the repeated use of female-specific terms in the law does indicate to anyone attempting to interpret it for legal use (such as the awarding of grant funds, determining who to arrest, and decision-making regarding prosecution and sentencing) all appear to be directed by that language. As a result, there are few resources in existence for victims of female abusers, for male victims of any abusers, and especially for fathers with children who are displaced due to abuse.

The combination leaves male victims of false and malicious prosecution with little to no means of defense, and no recourse against their abusers, especially if their abusers are using the system designed to protect the abused.  

I urge you to consider the reforms suggested by SAVE, in the hope that reforming the law will reduce the ease with which it is being abused, and will encourage the diversification of its application to populations which are currently underserved.