Last we checked in with Dr. Ruth Jacobs, president of the Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government, she was explaining why transgender women should not be allowed in her bathroom: “If somebody with an opposite body part is allowed in to a ladies’ restroom—a guy who has a penis, who could put his penis inside my vagina—what am I to do?” Jacobs said. “We need to be able to retain the right to speak up about men in our bathrooms without being labeled bigots.”

Okay! Well, now Dr. Jacobs is back to apply her anatomical expertise to the issue of gay marriage. Let's see what she has to say!

Thanks to Metro Weekly for getting this all on tape. Here are the money quotes:

* "An anus was designed for exit, not entrance."

* "Who will protect the children?"

* "Once it becomes law, you cannot opt out . . . students are terrified to be taken out of sex ed. They get on their knees and beg to their parents to be included. Because, to be outside is to be labeled the conservative. To go to the library while everyone else is in class having sex ed, means that you then—when you refuse to go to sex ed, you then become the group that is discriminated against."

* "46 percent of black men . . . are HIV positive" (No).

* Marriage and the vagina and the penis are designed to go together, and the penis and the anus do not."

* And a dose of reality courtesy of Councilmember David Catania: "If your testimony is that you're only eligible to marry if your population has a low HIV rate, the first in line . . . are lesbians. So based on your testimony, we could only marry lesbians."

Responding to criticisms of the provision, Catania Chief of Staff Ben Young said that domestic partnerships will be "unnecessary in a world with marriage equality." Young told the Blade, "Domestic partnerships were developed as a substitute for civil marriage for gays and lesbians, and could continue to serve as a vestige of an era of inequality." But as Harrice-Lacewell details, the institution of marriage itself is a vestige of centuries of sexism, racism, classism, and heteronormativity. Will incorporating same-sex couples into the institution manage to fully strip marriage of its problematic history?

In D.C., domestic partnerships afford same- and opposite-sex couples "nearly all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage." Here, the difference between partnership and marriage is largely symbolic. Marriage equality advocates across the country are fighting for that symbolic cultural recognition as much as they are the hospital visitation rights and the tax breaks. But for some couples, both gay and straight, the symbolic implications of marriage are precisely what  turn them off to the institution. For these people, domestic partnerships have functioned not as a vestige of inequality—a poor substitute for marriage—but rather as a welcome legal alternative, minus the cultural hang-ups. These couples should be allowed the option to secure the rights and benefits of marriage without associating with what has been, for centuries, a bigotry shit-show.

Even when everyone who wants to get hitched is allowed to, a "world with marriage equality" may still leave unmarried gay men and women outside the fold of this new-found social acceptance.  "I think that the more gay life can become legitimized (which is usually just code for "heteronormafied"), it will create a further subclass within the gay subclass," says Zack Rosen, editor of The New Gay. "[The current movement's] school of thought is that we can win rights by being the best damn gay people we can. That means getting married, washing behind our ears, etc. The problem with that, though, is that if it only rewards gay people that want to get married and have kids, the gay people that decide not to do that will become further marginalized."

Those gay people who do want to couple up for the long-term shouldn't be forced to opt into this problematic social institution in order to secure their legal rights. By denying couples the ability to enter into domestic partnerships, the District of Columbia tells its gay population that the road to legal and social equality must end in marriage. For those couples, gay and straight, who see marriage as an institution historically dedicated to inequalities, that reasoning is hard to swallow.

The District of Columbia may be a few Senators short of statehood, but it's close to securing some other rights for its citizens, D.C. Council member David Catania says. At Saturday's 2008 GLBT Economic Development Summit, Catania "reaffirmed that a same-sex marriage bill will be introduced to the Council in January, and that he is sure it will pass," DCist reports. In an interview, Catania said that "[m]any of us on the Council believe that there is no better time that exists than now."

Bills passed by the D.C. Council are subject to Congressional review. Though some saw the passage of Prop 8 as an indication of how Congress would act on future gay marriage initiatives, Cantania says he's confident that the Council will pass a measure in January, and that the then largely Democratic Congress will
approve the bill sometime next year.

Photo of Chicago Prop 8 protest by Grant Gochnauer.