Same-sex marriage in prison "causes some trouble for our prevailing orthodoxies on sexuality and the law," according to The Weekly Standard.
British inmates Marc Goodwin and Mikhail Gallatinov became the first men to marry one another in the British penal system last year, despite serving life sentences for "hate crimes targeting homosexuals," the Standard reports.
According to The Guardian, Gallatinov is a convicted pedophile who was convicted in 1997 of murdering a man he met through a gay chat line. Goodwin was sentenced in 2007 for killing Malcolm Benfold, 57, in what was described by police as "a savage, senseless homophobic attack that resulted in the death of a harmless man."
Gallatinov's mother, Christina Williams, said she was "glad he's found love again," after an earlier ex-boyfriend was moved by prison officials.
Writing for the Standard, Jonathan V. Last questions if "the homophobic murders [could] have been committed by gay men — in which case, they weren't really "homophobic," then, were they? Or did Goodwin and Gallatinov's sexuality evolve in prison?
"In which case, maybe people aren't simply 'born this way.' And while we're at it, if same-sex marriage is broadened to include even prison inmates, then why have gender-segregated prisons in the first place? Doesn't the prospect of gay inmates having daily contact with their spouses cause a disparate impact on heterosexual inmates?"
Gallatinov and Goodwin have not been allowed to share a cell after their marriage, and are housed in separate wings of the prison.
"This sort of confusion is where the sexuality and gender revolution of the last twenty years eventually leads," Last concludes. "And it's only going to get worse."
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