Johah Goldberg has an engaging piece at the National Review site titled Springfield vs. Shelbyville: Gay marriage, incest, and The Simpsons. In the end, he endorses a federalist approach -- don't bar states from recognizing gay marriages, but don't force them to recognize them, either, or risk a huge backlash that will reinvigorate the religious right. It's a compromise that Andrew Sullivan says he'd be happy to live with.
Past or Future?
A Reuters story, headlined "White
House Mum on Amendment Banning Gay Marriage," reports President
Bush has stopped short of endorsing the anti-gay Federal Marriage
Amendment after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he
"absolutely" supports altering the Constitution to prevent states
from recognizing same-sex marriages. In the words of White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer:
"The president believes that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman," Fleischer told reporters. "We have a law on the books right now that ... passed with massive, overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 1996. The president supports that legislation and that's where he stands right now."
Who knows if this is a coordinated strategy to have Frist placate the religious right while Bush stands back, but it apparently signals that the prestige of the presidency won't be deployed to rewrite the Constitution to please the "wingnuts" (at least for now).
According to a
USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll:
55% of American said same-sex marriages should NOT be recognized
with the same rights as traditional marriages between a man and a
woman, while 39% said they should be valid. When the same question
was asked in March 1996, 68% said homosexual marriages should not
be recognized by law, while 27% believed they should.
But significantly, 61% ofAmericans 18 to 29 years old said same-sex marriages should be valid. So tying the party to a constitutional amendment that cements a gay-marriage ban for the remainder of our lifetimes could push away the upcoming generation of voters that the GOP needs to attract. Once again, the choice is a politics of the past that appeals to the most reactionary forces in the GOP, or to embrace a future-directed politics built upon the foundation of individual liberty that we'll celebrate this July 4th weekend.
Safire's Sure-Fire Advice.
New York Times columnist William Safire, who has a conservative foreign policy bent but leans libertarian on social issues, writes:
Rather than wring our hands and cry "abomination!", believers in family values should take up the challenge and repair our own house. Why do too many Americans derogate as losers those parents who put family ahead of career, or smack their lips reading about celebrities who switch spouses for fun? Why do we turn to the government for succor, to movie porn and violence for sex and thrills, to the Internet for companionship, to the restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner -- when those functions are the ties that bind families?
I used to fret about same-sex marriage. Maybe competition from responsible gays would revive opposite-sex marriage.
Fair-minded former critics of letting us wed are starting to come around, and more will do so. Their support will be needed.
Whoa! Canada!
The
Washington Post reports that Canada's recognizing same-sex
marriages and decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana has some
U.S. conservatives singing (to the tune of South Park's "Blame
Canada" song):
"It seems like everything went wrong / Since Canada came along."