This has been all over the web, but it's still fun. The rabidly anti-gay American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Mississippi, runs an online news service that's set to auto-change "gay" to "homosexual in wire copy stories. In several pieces about runner Tyson Gay's record-breaking performance at the U.S. Olympic track and field finals, the AFA auto-changed his name to "Tyson Homosexual," as noted over at outsports.com and elsewhere.
Even conservative blogger James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web (scroll down to "William was a Homosexual Deceiver") found the AFA's intransigence more than slightly ridiculous.
(Relatedly, a friend emails me that "I've seen lots of headlines this week saying 'Gay Breaks World Record,' and I've beamed with pride.")
--Posted on July 2, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 6 Comment(s)
Encouraging numbers from a new TIME/ABT poll: National support for same-sex marriage is up to 42 percent, with the 51 percent opposition only barely mustering a majority. Gay marriage has moved from the fringes only a few years ago to being within eyeshot of parity. And opposition to an anti-SSM amendment to the U.S. Constitution now runs 58 percent.
Maybe that's why Barack Obama, who has previously said he thinks marriage should be limited to heterosexual couples, has come out against a California state constitutional initiative to do exactly that. In California, Gov. Schwarzenegger is performing the same straddle—that is, opposing gay marriage but also opposing the effort to overturn it.
As IGF contributor Dale Carpenter points out over at volokh.com, being both anti-SSM and anti-anti-SSM makes little sense logically in a world where the policy is either to have SSM or not. But let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. The politicians are straddling because the climate of opinion is shifting. Obama and Schwarzenegger are barometers.
--Posted on July 1, 2008 by Jonathan Rauch
Permalink | 9 Comment(s)
This Advocate article looks at efforts by the nonpartisan Gill Action Fund to elect fair-minded (read gay-friendly) officials beginning at the lowest levels and then supporting them throughout their careers, a strategy that has been used successfully by the religious right and, more generally, by the conservative GOPAC. Interestingly, the two leaders of this effort are Patrick Guerriero, a former leader of the Log Cabin Republicans, and Bill Smith, a former employee of Karl Rove.
These guys seem willing to play hardball for providing select candidates with financial support. That's a refreshing change from gay Democrats, whether at the Human Rights Campaign or elsewhere, and gay Republicans, who are primarily party activists looking to elect their party's candidates, and then expand their niche in the party as a reward for their service. That's fair enough (except when HRC pretends to be nonpartisan, when it clearly no longer is). But I'm glad to see efforts such as this one that don't put partisanship first.
--Posted on June 26, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 8 Comment(s)
From The Advocate: "Sen. Obama reminded us this week that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, something LGBT people might have easily forgotten over the course of the primary." Meanwhile, thousands of gay couples wed across California. And Obama still hasn't (that I could find) spoken out against the California anti-gay marriage amendment, despite the swooning endorsements and piles of cash he's receiving from smitten LGBT activists and their followers.
But, as former Reason magazine editor Virginia Postrel observed on her Dynamist blog, "If Obama comes out forcefully against the amendment—as he should—his African-American base in California and elsewhere won't like it."
More. Postrel also notes that "Blacks are overwhelmingly opposed to gay marriage and supportive of the [California] initiative, so much so that gay marriage supporters are essentially writing them off...," and that if, as widely expected, Obama turns out a hugh African-American vote in the Golden State, it will help pass the anti-gay marriage amendment. That's a point I've also made.
Furthermore. On June 25, Andrew Sullivan takes exception and says I'm wrong about Obama's position on the California amendment. But I think reader "avee" has hit the nail on the head about what's behind the confusion. He writes:
One or more commenters claim that Obama has spoken out against the amendment; neither blogger Steve nor I can find any such statement.
[Obama] has said that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and that state's should decide. He has also suggested that he doesn't have a problem with what's happening in CA. That double-talk does not amount to speaking out against the amendment....
UPDATE. On July 1, Obama finally issued a statement opposing the California anti-gay marriage amendment. Good. Now let's see how enthusiastically he speaks out against it (if at all) while on the campaign trail.
And yes, McCain is backing the admendment. Bad boy. But he's not getting all the campaign support, including voter registration/mobilization and mass solicitation of gay donations, being orchestrated by HRC and friends, is he? That's why Obama is being held to a higher standard, and why his long delay in coming out against the amendment was not acceptable.
--Posted on June 24, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 43 Comment(s)
We just can't trust them with marriage.
My Wall Street Journal article making the case for gay marriage comes with rotating "sponsored links." So guess who's advertising? Along with "See Today's Mortgage Rates" and "AARP Auto Insurance" we have...
* Divorce Advice and Tips, from www.divorce360.com
* Easy Online Divorce $299, from www.3stepdivorce.com
Why is heterosexual marriage even legal?
--Posted on June 23, 2008 by Jonathan Rauch
Permalink | 4 Comment(s)
Not all LGBT Americans are celebrating the newly gained freedom to marry in California, it seems. Writing over at The Advocte, IGF contributing author James Kirchick takes aim at a particularly insipid example of politically correct victimization posturing, the claim that "racist" white gays are forcing marriage on same-gender loving African Americans.
--Posted on June 19, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 31 Comment(s)
I'd like to add to what Jonathan has written below, on allowing religious people "conscientious-objector status" when it comes to requiring actions that affirm the equality of same-sex unions.
Almost all gay people, I'd say, want to be treated equally by the government, with the same rights and responsibilities as all citizens. That includes the right to marry (even if they choose not to marrry) and, for most, the right to serve in the military (even if they would choose not to do so).
Some gay people, however, don't merely want equal treatment by the state. They want to use the state against those who, based on deeply felt religious belief, do not want to offer their services to same-sex marriage or civil union ceremonies, as Jonathan describes below.
That's called progressivism, but others would say it's engaging in a legal vendetta against those who hold religious convictions that run counter to the principles of gay equality.
Another example that has garnered much publicity is from Canada, where an anti-gay pastor is appealing his conviction for writing a letter to a local paper that was found to defame gay people (who were compared to pedophiles and drug dealers), and thus to have contributed to a climate that fosters anti-gay violence.
The U.S. religious right is having a field day with this action in Alberta, charging that it's a reason to oppose measures such as the proposed federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act. And that, in turn, has led some supporters of gay nondiscrimination to defend the Alberta ruling, holding that speech that incites ill will should be banned.
But that is indeed a slippery slope, and one that runs counter to the right to express unpopular, and indeed ugly, opinions — a principle once defended by liberals.
More. Dale Carpenter, writing over at The Volokh Conspiracy, shares his thoughts on religious liberty and same-sex marriage. Excerpt:
Religious freedom is a first and founding principle of this country. I think religious accommodation to private persons and organizations should be generously provided, even where not required by the Constitution. At the very least, accommodation should be made where it can be offered without harming the protected class. For that reason, I think an exemption should have been offered in several of the cases cited in the NPR report....
While I'd be generous about accommodating the religious objections of private persons, I am very wary of introducing a system of exemption for public officers serving the public with taxpayers' money.
--Posted on June 16, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 28 Comment(s)
Today NPR had an interesting, and ominous, story on how antidiscrimination law is (so far) trumping religious objections to gay marriage. For instance, when a Methodist organization in New Jersey refused to let its property be used for a lesbian wedding, a civil-rights commission revoked a tax break for the site. Next stop: state court.
I hope the Methodists win, though better still if this complaint had never been brought. Gay-rights advocates will be badly burned politically—and the Madisonian in me thinks we'll deserve to be burned—if we use antidiscrimination law as a bulldozer against attempts by religious people to disassociate themselves from same-sex marriage. "It's the law, get used to it" is an unwise and insensitive approach. We can do 95% of what we want to do while letting religious people maintain conscientious-objector status. The other 5% percent is not worth the contention and fury it will cause.
As for using the law to force Christian photographers to shoot gay weddings (also covered in the NPR piece)—James Madison must be spinning in his grave. Freedom of religious conscience is the founding American freedom. For Pete's sake, live and let live.
--Posted on June 16, 2008 by Jonathan Rauch
Permalink | 20 Comment(s)
Here's a look at some items of interest in the wake of the CA marriage ruling:
A coalition of gay rights groups is urging out-of-state same-sex couples who marry in CA not to file lawsuits in their home states and in the federal courts demanding recognition of their unions. The reason:
"Pushing the federal government before we have a critical mass of states recognizing same-sex relationships or suing in states where the courts aren't ready is likely to get us bad rulings. Bad rulings will make it much more difficult for us to win marriage, and will certainly make it take much longer," the groups said....
When we've won in a critical mass of states, we can turn to Congress and the federal courts. At that point, we'll ask that the U.S. government treat all marriages equally. And we'll ask that all states give equal treatment to all marriages and civil unions that are celebrated in other states."
That seems like a healthy does of realpolitik, although I'd contend that focusing on winning legislatively is the way to make real advances while minimizing the risk of voter backlash (in CA, the legislature twice passed same-sex marriage bills, and the governor who vetoed them now says he supports the idea—and still all could be lost in November's ballot initiative when the masses vote on an anti-gay marriage state amendment that polls show has majority support).
I'm also guessing that some newly married gay couples will still sue in their home states, and that the likely results won't take us forward.
Somewhat related, but on a more positive note, Overlawyered.com looks at the ongoing Miller-Jenkins (Vermont-Virginia lesbian custody) legal battle, and how Virginia's highest court has now ruled in favor of the lesbian co-parent's visitation rights, in a state where conservatives have gone to great aims to deny any recognition of relationship rights for same-sex couples.
And the New York Times analyzes how "Gay Unions Shed Light on Gender in Marriage," and finds:
While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll. ...
The ability to see the other person's point of view appears to be more automatic in same-sex couples, but research shows that heterosexuals who can relate to their partner's concerns and who are skilled at defusing arguments also have stronger relationships.
Same-sex marriages is going to enrich the culture of marriage, it seems, just as some of us have always contended.
--Posted on June 11, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 3 Comment(s)
Feminist author Linda Hirshman's longish analysis in Sunday's Washington Post, Looking to the Future, Feminism Has to Focus, takes on the self-defeating aspects of the women's movement. The lessons she finds also apply, in many respects, to the fight for gay equality. For example, she writes that:
Faced with criticism that the movement was too white and middle class, many influential feminist thinkers conceded that issues affecting mostly white middle-class women—such as the corporate glass ceiling or the high cost of day care—should not significantly concern the feminist movement. Particularly in academic circles, only issues that invoked the "intersectionality" of many overlapping oppressions were deemed worthy.
But somehow, only those privileged by white middle-classness were expected to stop selfishly focusing on their own needs and goals. Hirshman continues:
Although other organizations work on women's issues when appropriate, none of the other social movements were much interested in making intersectionality their mission. The nation's oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP... says nothing about feminism or homophobia or intersectionality in its mission statement.
An unmentioned exception, of course, is that the leading LGBT organizations make support for abortion rights and race-based preferences (see past Human Rights Campaign scorecards) litmus test issues and otherwise define themselves as working on behalf of the entire progressive agenda (see the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force's mission statement). But I digress. Hirshman goes on, and quotes Martha Burk, past president of the National Council of Women's Organizations (with brackets and ellipses in the original):
A lot of millennial feminism simply magnifies the weakness of the old movement. As Burk says: "When we started the [younger women's] task force, the young women wanted to identify it with environmentalism and prison rights and, and, and,..." Sound familiar?
She concludes:
So I'll invoke the insights of someone less than half my age, the young editor of Feministe, Jill Filipovic. "Mainstream liberal Democratic guys don't have to take feminism seriously because they know that, at the end of the day, we're going to be there," she told me.
Yep, sounds familiar.
--Posted on June 8, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 14 Comment(s)
At 1:28 in this video clip of Hillary Clinton's concession speech today, check out the ecstatic reaction of the young people in the crowd behind her when she hits "gay and straight" in her litany of supporters.
We're not baggage any more. A rising generation of voters identifies with us...and will shun politicians who shun us.
Glad I lived to see it.
--Posted on June 7, 2008 by Jonathan Rauch
Permalink | 13 Comment(s)
At his arraignment at Gitmo on Thursday, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed described what drives his jihad:
"I consider all American constitution" evil, he said, because it permits "same-sexual marriage and many other things that are very bad," he told the military judge, Col. Ralph Kohlmann. "Do you understand?"
Meanwhile, Dan Blatt over at Gay Patriot reports a story ignored by U.S. mainstream and gay media:
At a fashion show to promote tolerance of gay people on April 30, a national holiday in Holland, celebrating the birthday of the late Queen Juliana, a group of ten Muslim youths dragged gay model Mike Du Pree down from the catwalk, beating him up and breaking his nose. A second model who tried to help out was also attacked.
I could find no reference to this beating on any of the [U.S.] gay news web-sites I checked....
Martin Bosma, gay issues spokesman of the Dutch Party of Freedom (PVV), said..."This shows how strong the Islamic gaybashers feel they are. Even at daylight, on Queen’s Day, in the heart of Amsterdam, they strike.... Either they will win, or we will win."
Or we could pretend that offering their allies tea with Obama will take care of all.
--Posted on June 7, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 54 Comment(s)
The Human Rights Campaign has now endorsed Obama for President, despite his refusal to oppose the California ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage (as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle), and despite his stated position that marriage can only be between a man and a woman—neither of which is mentioned in HRC's gushing endorsement announcement.
As noted in the item below, the Economist reports that African-Americans overwhelmingly oppose same-sex marriage, and Obama is likely to fire up a much larger African-American turnout in California this November. So why an endorsement with no strings attached? Because HRC exists to serve the party, silly.
More. HRC even beat the Stonewall Democrats in getting out their endorsement message, showing which organization is the more effectively partisan.
Furthermore. The San Francisco Chronicle article states:
Obama ... has said repeatedly that marriage itself should be reserved for a man and a woman. With an amendment outlawing same-sex marriage on the California ballot in November, Obama will probably be called to defend his carefully nuanced position when he campaigns in the state.
Gee, maybe HRC should have gotten him to strongly, and publicly, condemn the amendment and work against its passage as a precondition for their endorsement, you think?
--Posted on June 6, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 43 Comment(s)
From The Economist:
Although California's major pollsters reckon the gap is closing, they have never found a majority of residents in favor of same-sex marriage. Whites are evenly divided on the subject, whereas Latinos are opposed and blacks are fiercely opposed. February's primary election suggests turnout among both minority groups will be high this November.
It's altogether possible that a huge African-American turnout for Obama (who believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, just like the wording of the ballot initiative) could doom marriage equality in the nation's most populous state. But that's a scenario you won't hear discussed by Obama's LGBT supporters.
More. Since one commenter charges that my remarks about Obama's views on same-sex marriage are wrong, here are some facts:
Obama says: "I do not support gay marriage. Marriage has religious and social connotations, and I consider marriage to be between a man and a woman." (From the Human Rights Campaign's 2008 Presidential questionnaire)
Proposed California marriage amendment says: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
Furthermore. Reader "avee" predicts:
Obama says he is against the CA marriage amendment [sic], but he also says that he is against gay marriage because marraige can only be between a man and woman. Expect his anti-gay-marriage quote to be reproduced in ads in the African-American media by amendment supporters before the election.
Actually, Obama apparently has not come out in opposition of the amendment, unlike GOP Gov. Schwarzenegger. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, supports civil unions and equal rights for same-sex couples, but he has said repeatedly that marriage itself should be reserved for a man and a woman.
With an amendment outlawing same-sex marriage on the California ballot in November, Obama will probably be called to defend his carefully nuanced position when he campaigns in the state.
McCain, regrettably, endorsed the state amendment while continuing to oppose a federal amendment, but one would certainly expect more—much more— from Obama, who is and will be receiving droves of gay dollars and gay votes, and the adoration of LGBT activists throughout the land.
More still. It's now on the ballot. And it's unclear whether same-sex marriages performed over the next five months would be nullified if the amendment passes. Also, New York State's recent executive order instructing state agencies to recognized same-sex marriages performed elsewhere is being challenged.
--Posted on May 31, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 64 Comment(s)
In Wednesday's Los Angeles Times, Macy's ran a full-page ad for its wedding registry that says, "First comes love. Then comes marriage. And now it's a milestone every couple in California can celebrate."
A while back, Paul Varnell looked at the positive side of gays being (oh, the horror!) a target market.
The Macy's ad also brought to mind the article Capitalism and the Family, written last year by Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University, who noted that:
One final result of capitalism's effects on economic growth and the rise of the love-based marriage is perhaps the most controversial cultural issue of the early 21st century: the demand for the legalization of same-sex marriage. ...
Although leftist historians...at least recognize the ways in which capitalism has made gay identity and thus the demand for same-sex marriage possible, they still go out of their way to note that this does not mean that capitalism is actually good.
Conservatives, however, seem unaware of the connection. They continue to pay lip service to the great things capitalism provides and often understand correctly the ways in which its economic effects cannot be controlled, yet they complain about the cultural dynamism that is the direct result of the dynamism of the market.
That sums it up nicely.
More. David Boaz, as it happens, has a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week about capitalism and its political discontents, taking aim at presidential candidates (and, I'd add, their media cheerleaders) who hypocritically disparage the "money culture" of traders, entrepreneurs and manufacturers. States Boaz, in rebuttal: "You have a right to live it as you choose, to follow your bliss. You have a right to seek satisfaction in accomplishment. And if you chase after the almighty dollar, you just might find that you are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do things that improve the lives of others."
--Posted on May 29, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 23 Comment(s)
A report in LA Weekly, California GOP: The Queer Enablers of Gay Marriage, highlights why the "all LGBT eggs (and votes, and money) in the Democratic Party basket" (or else you must be a "self-loathing" rich white gay jerk) is and always was partisanship gone wild:
[GOP Gov. Pete Wilson] appointed Judge Ronald M. George to the California State Supreme Court. Nearly 17 years later, the moderate Republican jurist would become a national gay hero. Last Thursday, it was George’s carefully written majority opinion that legalized same-sex marriage in California. By nightfall...gay activists stood on a stage and publicly lauded the judge as “courageous.” Speaker after speaker also praised another Republican, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for promising to "fight" against a November ballot measure that could still outlaw gay marriage in the Golden State. ...
When Robin Tyler, a plaintiff in last week’s historic case and a gay-rights advocate for more than 40 years, realized many months ago that the California State Supreme Court was jammed with Republicans, she was anything but fearful. “I was thrilled,” she says. "I thought we’d stand more of a chance. I think a Democratic court might have shied away because of the issue of the (presidential) election."
As I never tire of pointing out, our national LGBT groups are largely staffed by activists with close ties to the Democratic Party, and much of their top leadership ranks flow back and forth from positions within the party itself (with an eye kept on possible low to mid-level positions in the next Democratic administration). That would be fine if these groups presented themselves as partisans targeting LBGT money and votes on their party's behalf, but they don't.
Yep, It's Groundbreaking
Semi-related, Laura Bush and daughter Jenna last week taped a segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (expected to air this coming Wednesday), discussing their new book. Ellen is a California resident, and following the California Supreme Court's marriage ruling she announced her engagement to longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi.
Ponder that for a moment: A conservative Republican First Lady going on a chat show with a famous lesbian who's just announced she's going to get married?
And now, this just in: The AP reports that "President Bush's newly married daughter, Jenna Hager, seemed to offer her family's Texas ranch to Ellen DeGeneres as a wedding location."
I think this is just another sign that the religious right is losing on all fronts, and that their initiatives to ban marriage are just last stands in their retreat —last stands that may stay in state constitutions for a generation, alas, but still part of a general losing effort.
--Posted on May 24, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 27 Comment(s)
From the Los Angeles Times: "Among registered voters in California, 54 percent support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, and 35 percent oppose it.... Of those who said they didn't know a gay person, 70 percent support the amendment..."
The Times tries to give the findings a positive spin as a "narrow margin" for the amendment's passage, but actually, I'm told, pre-vote polls on state anti-gay amendments have undercounted the support for banning same-sex unions by an average of 10% — amendment backers don't feel comfortable giving their real views, it seems, perhaps fearing that the pollster will think they're bigots.
Equality California's PAC is the right place to donate, I'm told.
If the anti-gay marriage amendment fails (as did a similar effort in Arizona two years ago), it will mark an historic turning point. If the amendment passes, marriage equality will be delayed in the nation's most populous state for perhaps a generation — which demonstrates both the promise and real risks of pursing a judicial strategy.
--Posted on May 23, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 6 Comment(s)
A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an opinion favorable to Major Margaret Witt, a decorated Air Force nurse and Persian Gulf veteran who was discharged for being in a longstanding relationship with another woman.
The appellate panel cited the U.S. Supreme Court's Lawrence decision, which overturned so-called sodomy laws criminalizing gay sex, and which established that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment [revised from earlier posting]. The panel then remanded for lower court determination whether Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) violated Witt's (and by extension all service members') fundamental rights. IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter weighs in over at the Volokh Conspiracy, commenting:
I take some satisfaction in the panel's conclusion that Lawrence supports heightened scrutiny for laws that burden the exercise of private adult sexual autonomy.
But just about every lower federal and state court, and it seems most scholars, until now have refused to read Lawrence that way. Even courts that have struck down laws that are anti-gay, like the Kansas Supreme Court (striking down a law establishing vastly different criminal penalties for sex with a minor depending on whether the minor was of the same or opposite sex), or striking down laws that have infringed on private adult sexual autonomy, like a recent Fifth Circuit panel (striking down a Texas law against sex toys), have avoided reading Lawrence as a fundamental-rights case. Indeed, on the question of whether the sodomy decision recognized a fundamental right, it can be said without too much exaggeration that the controlling opinion in Lawrence is actually Justice Scalia's dissent....
Nevertheless, quite apart from whether DADT is ultimately struck down, and unless the en banc court reverses the panel's determination that some form of intermediate scrutiny applies under Lawrence, this holding by itself is significant.
Law professor Eugene Volokh adds:
there's now a split on the subject between the Ninth and the Eleventh Circuits, and the question extends far beyond "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (The Eleventh Circuit decision, for instance, upheld Florida's ban on adoption by homosexuals; that case might well come out differently under heightened scrutiny.
There's background on Maj. Witt and her case here.
More. Carpenter also comments on sexual orientation and heightened scrutiny in the California marriage decision, here, finding:
the court’s equal protection holding will outlast a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and will have potential to challenge anti-gay discrimination well beyond the issue of marriage. If gay marriage loses in California in November, the equal-protection holding will be the lasting legacy of the opinion.
--Posted on May 22, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 20 Comment(s)
In one of the most bizarre arguments against state recognition of same-sex marriages, social conservative Melanie Scarborough reaches for her pen and writes:
permitting individuals of the same sex to describe their relationships as marriage gives them a right not extended to heterosexuals, for whom “marriage” is very narrowly defined. Although a man and a woman may legally wed, the law does not consider the marriage valid unless it is consummated .... But unless the relationship includes the one act defining marital union ... the question is moot; homosexual marriage is physically impossible.
Now, the assertion that marriage is and can only be "consummated" and thus made legal by vaginal intercourse, or else it isn't marriage, is circular in the extreme. Scarborough is also implying that marriage is as marriage always was, which is ridiculous. Women are no longer property, and marriages (legal ones, at any rate) are no longer polygamous.
And while I haven't read the marriage laws in all 50 states, I know that two people are considered married, with all the legal rights and obligations, without producing evidence of a broken hymen — and that particularly among the elderly, where many late-in-life marriages are companionate, it's a good thing that no bloody sheet need be produced.
It seems that many social conservatives are clearly losing it, and not in a good way.
More. And let's not fail to take note of conservative columnist (and sometimes Culture Watch reader and commenter) Maggie Gallagher, who predicts:
Polyamorists, Muslims, and breakaway heretical Mormons can expect to find at a minimum new comfort in this sweeping moral support (if not yet legal support) for the dignity of their own favored family relationships, since the right to marry is the right to have one's family relationship officially recognized and accorded equal dignity.
Oh dear, it's that old slippery slope again. But to paraphrase Jon Rauch, gays are not fighting for a right that no Americans now legally have (to multiple marriages, or "to marry everybody"), just a right that most Americans have ("to marry somebody").
Furthermore. Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne writes in the Washington Post:
As it happens, I am one of the millions of Americans whose minds have changed on this issue. Like many of my fellow citizens, I was sympathetic to granting gay couples the rights of married people but balked at applying the word "marriage" to their unions.
"That word and the idea behind it," I wrote 13 years ago, "carry philosophical and theological meanings that are getting increasingly muddled and could become more so if it were applied even more broadly.
Like a lot of people, I decided I was wrong. What moved me were the conservative arguments for gay marriage put forward by the writers Jonathan Rauch, Andrew Sullivan and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
They see society as having a powerful interest in building respect for long-term commitment and fidelity in sexual relationships and that gay marriage underscores how important commitment is. Prohibiting members of one part of our population from making a public and legal commitment to each other does not strengthen marriage; it weakens it.
--Posted on May 19, 2008 by Stephen H. Miller
Permalink | 31 Comment(s)
I wish I could be as overjoyed by the California Supreme Court's ruling for same-sex marriage as the rest of the gay world is. Politically, the ruling merely tees up an initiative battle, to be decided by simple majority vote. Backlash against the Court may make that battle harder to win. Affirmation of the Court's decision by plebescite would be tremendous, but it's too early to celebrate.
As for the ruling itself, my reading of it leads to a reaction I wish I didn't have: the majority opinion here is an example of judicial overreach.
Caveat: That's a flash reaction subject to change as I learn more. But, as I understand the opinion, here's what the court did.
In Massachusetts, the state Supreme Court had a stark choice before it: SSM, or throw gays out the window (TGOW). TGOW was a clear denial of equal protection, not remotely justified by the state's arguments, so the court went with SSM.
California offers a very different situation. Gay couples already have available all the substantive state rights of marriage, under the state's domestic-partner program. The state Supreme Court was merely deciding whether the legislature could withhold the word "marriage" in deference to tradition and public preference.
No, said the court. Gays are a "suspect class" and no differentiation of any kind is tolerable. The Court acknowledges that in California "marriage" has always, until now, meant opposite-sex marriage. Nonetheless, it holds that marriage definitionally includes same-sex couples.
Wait a minute. If the state constitution never even contemplated SSM before, why does it mandate SSM now? Because, says the Court, social mores and state policies (including the state's domestic-partner law) have, in the past 30 years, recognized the fundamental importance of equal rights for gays. The state has implicitly repudiated its tradition of discriminating against gays, and marriage law must reflect this change.
What the Court seems to be saying, then, is that California can have SSM. And California can have TGOW, provided throwing gays out the window reflects a broad consensus against gay equality. The one thing California cannot have is compromise en route to gay equality. Once the state has decided to treat gay people equally, it must go all the way. No half-measures, or even 90-percent measures. No experiments, transitions, interim steps, or concessions to politics. All or nothing, now!
This kind of legal totalism, it seems to me, is tailor-made to rule out any kind of accommodation, even if that accommodation gives gay couples most of what we need with the promise of more to come (soon). As one of the dissents points out (PDF), it also may make legislators reluctant to even start down the road toward civil rights.
I think SSM is a better policy than civil unions (at least one of the dissenters agrees). And I think denial of marriage to gay couples is discriminatory. But to make even a well-intentioned compromise ILLEGAL strikes me as a step too far, and a good example of how culture wars escalate.
--Posted on May 15, 2008 by Jonathan Rauch
Permalink | 43 Comment(s)
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