A Bit Of Fiction To Make A Point

So why can't Zach and Javy accept a civil union? Why do they need to be "married"?

Zach is a 24-year-old graphic artist, Javy a 25-year-old waiter going to night school at the Fashion Institute of Technology. They met two years ago at Javy's restaurant, a vegetarian joint in the East Village. It wasn't exactly love at first sight. More like lust at first sight. The gaydar shrieked, Zach excused himself from the table to slip Javy his telephone number, they hooked up. Soon, they were committed. Well, as committed as young gay guys in New York can be. For a while, both did the odd blow jobs. Now, they're monogamous. They want to live out their lives together.

They even have talked about marriage, something alien to previous gay generations. Marriage was for straight people. It was bourgeois, an arrangement designed to propagate mankind. Without children, what was the point? Or so we thought.

Then a generation of gay kids grew up in an era of relative acceptance. Zach came out as a high school senior in Virginia. Javy never really "came out" in L.A.; he just lived his life as a gay kid, no questions asked. Neither ever had an iota of shame or doubt about being gay, so they never had an iota of shame or doubt about the notion of marrying another man.

Suddenly, though, they felt the contempt of America, they felt their nation spitting in their face.

At first glance, civil unions seem like a nice compromise. Under a civil union, gay couples have all the legal rights of straight couples. Those range from financial benefits to hospital visitation. Not a bad way to solve a divisive issue, right?

Uh-uh. For Zach and Javy, it only confirms their pariah status in society. You know, separate but equal. Remember, the separate-but-equal doctrine kept blacks out of white schools, out of white toilets, away from white water fountains. Of course, things were never equal. White schools were palaces compared to black schools. More insidiously, the laws marginalized blacks, demeaned them, psychologically cemented their status as underlings.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared separate-but-equal unconstitutional five decades ago. Among the reasons for the decision: that black children developed a sense of inferiority because they were separated from the ruling-class white children.

Zach and Javy know they're not inferior to straights. They know it in their heads. They know it in their hearts. They know it in their souls. But gay kids also grow up knowing that society views them as undesirable. Forbidding them to marry accentuates that point. It hurts and hardens gay kids, kids whose basic desires are no different than any other guys: the latest Kanye West album, tickets to the Jay Z concert, a new video game, pizza 24/7, gallons of Slurpees. Then they mature -- and they want love, security and acceptance.

Which brings us back to civil unions. They might be better than nothing, but only marginally because the federal government doesn't recognize them. Clearly, they're not the morally right choice.

Few, if anybody, would argue that churches should be required to marry gays if they choose not to do so. They're private entities. But the government -- the representative of all the people -- has an obligation to allow gays to marry. To shirk that obligation condemns 4 percent of Americans to second-class status.

The Zachs and Javys of America -- people who want to formalize their love and commitment -- deserve better.