Two starkly different but possible futures are emerging. One of them would foreclose gay marriage for the lifetime of any person old enough to read this, erecting barrier after barrier to the recognition of gay couples. The other would mean a long, but ultimately successful, movement for full marriage rights. This is the fight of our lives and our elected officials must know that.
In the worst-case scenario, gay marriages in Massachusetts and elsewhere will fuel a backlash that results in double and triple obstacles for us. Already, 38 states have enacted laws banning gay marriages and refusing to recognize such marriages from other states. Facing the specter of gay marriages, under this scenario many states will be stampeded into amending their own state constitutions.
Far worse, Congress would vote to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriages, and perhaps even civil unions and domestic partnerships to boot That will be followed by ratification efforts in state after state. The debate over ratification will be vicious, marked by hateful stereotypes of gays as promiscuous child-molesters bent on destroying everything good in American life. In this super-charged atmosphere, hate crimes go up. Other civil rights measures stall. Worst of all, the amendment is ratified. Since only 13 states may block any repeal of this amendment - and we know where they are - the possibility of gay marriage is ended for our lifetimes.
But that is only one possible future. Here's another.
In the best-case scenario, gay marriages in Massachusetts and elsewhere demonstrate that same-sex marriage is no threat to anyone. Straight married couples get on with their lives, unaffected. Children still have mothers and fathers. There is no plague of locusts upon the land. Massachusetts accordingly rejects a state constitutional amendment, either because the legislature can't muster the votes for a ban or because the people of Massachusetts vote it down. Either way, the people will have spoken. Gay marriages in that state will have a democratic legitimacy no court can confer. For the first time, gay marriage will have survived its most crucial test, the one in the court of democratic politics.
The experience of Massachusetts will embolden other states to start trying gay marriages, or at least civil unions followed quickly by marriage. State legislators will realize they don't commit political suicide by voting for it. The momentum gathers. Still no locusts.
At the federal level, under the best-case scenario, Democrats find their backbone on this issue after all the support we've given them over the years and vote to reject a constitutional amendment. A few principled Republicans, loathe to write what Andrew Sullivan has called "graffiti" on the Constitution, and truly committed to federalism, join the Democrats. State experimentation with gay marriage, free of congressional meddling and federal court fiat, is allowed to proceed.
The debate over the amendment and over state legislative action, and the existence of actual gay marriages, force people to think for the first time about why we would deny a loving, committed couple a marriage license. Many Americans can't come up with a good reason. Religious conservative groups, like those running to courts right now to stop people from marrying in San Francisco, look like the Grinch Who Stole Matrimony. Gay marriage, perhaps in our lifetime, is a reality across much of the country.
Neither of these scenarios is foregone. The future is ours to make. The people of this country are basically decent and fair. They do not like to shut people out for no good reason. But they also do not like to be rushed into, or to be forced into, a change they rightly regard as having fundamental significance. When the people have time to listen to our pleas, to consider the consequences, and to make a deliberative choice, equality usually wins.
But above all, winning the right future will mean making it plain that stopping an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the issue upon which every politician will henceforth be judged, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. There can be no "pass" given to any elected official on this issue, no matter how supportive he or she has been in the past. They must know we will always remember where they stood on this.
Gay Democrats must make it crystal clear to Democrats and to our civil-rights "allies" among progressive groups that we consider stopping this proposed constitutional amendment critically important. No votes, no money, no time, should be given to any Democrat who supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, no matter how many times they've sponsored an employment non-discrimination bill or a hate crimes law. This means you, too, John Kerry.
Gay Republicans also must stand up. We have been working to build some small voice in the GOP for just this moment. We must be crystal clear that no votes, no money, no time, will be given to any Republican who supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, no matter how many times they've cut taxes or made war on Islamo-fascism. This means you, too, George W. Bush.
Write and call your member of Congress and the White House. Talk up the issue among your friends, family members, and co-workers, even those whose support you can usually count on.
On this issue, unlike almost every other issue, no quarter can be given They are messing with our families now. This fight is for keeps. We must win it.