causes & news

by Meaghan Lamarre, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Alternatives to Marriage Project

Proponents and opponents alike had their eyes on Maine as voters in that state go to the polls today to decide whether or not to keep the law allowing same-sex marriage in their state.

In Washington state, too, a referendum is touch-and-go.  There, citizens voted on a referendum granting rights and obligations equivalent to marriage to same-sex domestic partners and senior heterosexual partners.

And although no vote was held on Tuesday, marriage and domestic partnerships have also been on the minds of citizens in our nation’s capital for the past two weeks. The Council of the District of Columbia has been holding hearings on a bill that would allow the District to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples – and the issue has sparked great interest and passion among many, including myself.

I was officially #127 of the nearly 300 individuals who requested the opportunity to testify on the bill, so many that two long hearings were scheduled to allow all views to be heard. Officials report that this is the largest number of requests to testify at a hearing that it has seen in decades. I attended portions of both hearings; during both, the room was packed each time with supporters and opponents.

As I sat in the hearing room, waiting for my turn to testify, I was struck by the passion and intensity of the testimony being offered. For proponents, this issue is intensely personal. Supporters shared stories of their trials with coming out and self-acceptance, the experiencing of realizing that their partner was “the one”, of their engagements; in one instance, a speaker asked his partner to marry him as part of his testimony.

For the opponents of same-sex marriage, the issue appears to be equally personal: from individuals who genuinely can’t abide the idea of marriage being anything other than as the Bible describes to those who feel that their individual rights are being abridged since they aren’t being allowed to vote on this issue.

For me, as a straight woman, the issue has less direct impact on me, but has always been one I feel passionately about. To me, it’s simple: respect for all individuals means that we all get to love whoever our hearts lead us to.

It’s that simple idea that guided my testimony Monday. I testified in my capacity as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a national nonprofit working to end discrimination on the basis of marital status. While we (and I) wholeheartedly support the right of same-sex couples to marry, the bill, as written, would end the District’s current domestic partnership registration program; a move that would leave a number of loving partners without legal protections.

Since 1992, the District of Columbia has allowed two individuals, who are both over age 18 and competent by law to form a contract and are living together, to register as domestic partners. This law grants protections to registered partnerships by giving them explicit rights when it comes to end of life decisions, hospital care, and death benefits as well as granting health insurance benefits to domestic partners of government employees.

Although domestic partnership registration programs are often thought of as marriage-like institutions for same-sex couples, it is important to note that this program applies more broadly than that. Not only does it cover couples of different sexes, but it also covered two individuals who may be related by blood who are living together – for example, two unmarried sisters who share a home and responsibility for the well-being of one another.

For those registered under the current domestic partner program, partners are treated like spouses when dealing with a partner’s illness in a hospital or with last wishes after a partner’s death; they may also take advantage of health benefits if one partner is an employee of District government. If the program ends, these benefits will likely no longer be available to these partners. So while endeavoring to expand rights for some same-sex couples who would choose to marry, this bill, if passed as written, would deny rights to other couples who would not, or could not, marry under the new law.

While the bill is largely expected to be passed by the Council, the fate of the District’s domestic partnership program is unknown. Although there appeared to be some support among members of the Council for maintaining the program, we won’t know until after the bill is fully marked up, a process that’s expected to begin on Nov. 10.

In the interest of fairness and justice for all, it is my hope that the District Council passes a bill that grants same-sex marriages while preserving domestic partnerships, and that voters in Maine and Washington preserve their recent expansions in this area. 


EDITOR'S NOTE:  At our request, Meaghan Lamarre took the time to recall her testimony about this important issue. 

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