Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage
by Davina Kotulaski, Ph.D.

Book review by Joe Kort, MSW

Q: What do a serial rapist, a murderer, a child pornographer, a lifer, and an armed robber share in common?

A: As long as they’re heterosexual, they can all get married in prison and never even have to live with their spouses. But you can’t!

This is just one of the many questions openly lesbian Davina Kotulski, Ph.D., asks in her first book, Why You Should Give A Damn About Gay Marriage (Alyson Books, March 2004). With the many current judgments, opinions and feelings swirling around the topic of gay marriage, the facts get lost. Her witty, engaging, informative book is easy to read and up to date.

When discussing this issue, it’s important to have these factual numbers on hand. Kotulski’s book helps us stay focused on such as "there are more than 1,049 federal rights that accompany civil marriage, and some additional 300 per state." Perhaps her most profound point regarding these numbers pertains to the upcoming presidential election. Candidates claim, “I support the individual state’s right to choose” regarding rights and marriage for same-sex couples. Of course they do, Kotulski says, since “state rights consist of 25% of the rights of heterosexual married couples”. “That way”, Kotulski argues, they don’t have to do anything to get you the other 75% your rights” as a gay and lesbian couple. In other words, this takes candidates off the hook about having to advocate any rights legislation for gays on a Federal level which make up most of the rights to civil marriages!

When you start talking about wanting gay marriage, how do you answer questions people raise? Why You Should Give a Damn is a user-friendly guide, offering answers to nine common arguments against marriage equality, including: marriage being for “procreation only”; marriage having “always been between a man and a woman”; that clergymen will be “forced into performing same-sex ceremonies”; and that “gay marriage will threaten the institution of marriage.” I wish Kotulski had a better response for the argument that gay marriage will “open the gates to legalizing incest, polygamy and bestiality.” In my experience, this is the most common —if illogical—response that opponents of Gay marriage cough up. Her response to this, while funny, is vague and not really helpful to me.

Her book also raises many concerns not addressed in the media and ones that even lesbian and gay couples may not have considered. If, for example, you are traveling away from home and your partner falls ill or suffers an accident and needs medical attention, you are not viewed as family. Legally, therefore, you have no input in your partner’s medical care. Even if you live in a state or city that acknowledges you both as domestic partners, the minute you leave that city or state, you become complete strangers in the eyes of the law. Even if—after having expensive wills and legal documents drawn up—you have durable power of attorney, still the hospital and medical team can deny you any right to being at your partner’s side.

One thing Kotulski reflects on that resonated for me was her comment about us calling our partner “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.” A girlfriend, she writes, “is not someone you have been with for 30 years.” She adds that because we are left out of the “adult fraternity” called marriage, we’re unfairly denied the adult responsibilities that marriage would give us. She begs the question: “Is it fair for an entire group of people to infantilized?”

For far too long, we Lesbians and Gays have reflected on our lives according to the way we feel subjectively, not on what the data, statistics, and accurate research can tell us about our culture. Davina Kotulski’s book is another tool to help bring the truth into the light and break down decades of false judgments based on fear.