API Advocates Say Same-Sex Marriage Important To Strong Families
By Kai Yoshida
Nichi Bei Times
September 29, 2005

Allowing same-sex couples to be married will lead to stronger families, say advocates of same-sex marriage.

Asian Pacific Islander same-sex couples are more likely to be raising their own children than non-API same-sex couples, found a study released by UCLA's Williams Project.

Additionally, the report found that same-sex couples in California are raising more than 5,600 children, and more than 4,000 API children are being raised by same-sex couples.

In a briefing on the report hosted by the Chinese for Affirmative Action/Center for Asian American Advocacy on Wednesday, panel members including Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) stressed a need for marriage equality for same-sex couples in order to provide Asian and Pacific Islanders with strong families.

"Families and children must have equal protection under the law," said Leno.

A constitutional amendment currently being proposed "defines parenting in such a way that children could be ripped from the loving arms of legal same-sex adoptive parents and foster parents," warned Leno.
"Imagine if you had two parents and one of your parents couldn't visit the other parent in the hospital when they were sick," stated San Francisco Assessor-Record Phil Ting, former executive director of the Asian Law Caucus.

"In the Asian American community, we know how painful it is for family to be separated between our home country and the United States," said Ting, "Current laws are structured to keep families apart."
A marriage equality bill passed by the California state legislature this year is currently in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's possession. The governor has until Oct. 9 to make a decision but has already announced his intent to veto the bill.

"Doing so would be disrespecting same-sex couples," said Leno.

However, Leno noted California's leadership position in same-sex rights, citing the domestic partner registry and additional housing acts and hate crimes laws that have all been amended to provide legal protections.

He is convinced that California will be the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. "It will be an expensive battle, but we will prevail."

Several of the panel members compared the current debate over same-sex marriage equality to that of once-illegal marriages between interracial couples.

People today look back at the illegality of interracial marriage and say, "It was such blatant discrimination," said Ting. "I think we will look 60 years from now and think the same thing, 'How could people think that way?'

"I don't think it's right for a city or a civic institution to treat one group of people one way and another group a different way. That is discrimination," said Ting.

"Having to use the term 'partner' instead of 'husband' makes me, with my own voice say, 'We're not equal,'" said John Lewis, who with Stuart Gaffney lead the San Francisco chapter of Equality California.
Lewis and Gaffney were married in San Francisco on Feb. 12, 2004, the first day that same-sex marriages were performed in San Francisco. Upon being declared spouses for life, "We felt our government treating us as equal human beings," said Gaffney.

When their marriage was ruled null and void six months later, Gaffney, whose mother is Chinese American, said he thought of his parents.

After California became the first state to legalize interracial marriage in 1948, Gaffney's parents were married. However, when they moved to Missouri, their marriage was, like Lewis and Gaffney's, considered null and void.

Having well-understood the possible effects of discrimination and the importance of civil liberties, in 1994 the Japanese American Citizens League became the first non-gay organization after the American Civil Liberties Union and the first Asian American organization to support marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Of the 13,000 Asian and Pacific Islanders same-sex partners living in California "sizable proportions" are of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Asian Indian, Cambodian and Taiwanese origin, states the report.