First published June 22, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.
Although little noted at the time, one of the most interesting aspects of last year's Senate debate on the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment was the relative absence of overt criticism of gays and lesbians and their relationships.
Instead, amendment supporters focused primarily on how the amendment would solidify the association of parenthood with marriage and would benefit children by assuring them an optimal family of two opposite sex parents.
As Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) expressed it, however disingenuously, "This amendment is not about prejudice. It is about safeguarding the best environment for our children."
Even some of the most conservative amendment supporters seemed to go out of their way to explicitly disclaim even a jot of anti-gay sentiment. For instance, lead sponsor Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) averred, "Gays and lesbians have the right to live the way they want."
And arch-conservative Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) emphasized during floor debate, "I do not believe it is appropriate for me to judge someone else's behavior. That is between them and their Lord."
What accounts for this shift in rhetorical emphasis from attacking gays as immoral, sodomical, perverts to a seemingly benign desire merely to help children?
In a fascinating article ("The Federal Marriage Amendment and the Strange Evolution of the Conservative Case against Gay Marriage," in the April issue of the journal PS: Political Science and Politics), former GOP intern Frederick Liu and Princeton University Professor Stephen Macedo suggest that one reason surely is that just a year earlier the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas had struck down all state anti-sodomy laws, removing any judicial legitimacy for conservative efforts to legislate anti-gay animus.
Perhaps more importantly, there was virtually no public outcry following the decision. One need only contrast that reaction with the uproar that followed the court's Brown v. Board of Education anti-segregation decision, or the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, still controversial after more than three decades.
A third reason would have to be that public opinion polls have shown a gradual decline in the number of Americans who view homosexuality as "always wrong" from nearly two-thirds (73 percent) some 30 years ago to barely half (53 percent) today.
And certainly a contributing factor would have to be the widespread criticism of Pennsylvania's gift to statesmanship Sen. Rick Santorum (R) as bigoted and intolerant after he harshly criticized the Lawrence decision, lumping homosexuality in the "everything is permitted" category with polygamy, incest, adultery, and bestiality.
Those might or might not induce a thoughtful conservative to rein in his vituperative attacks on gays but it turns out there was more to it than that.
In interviews with a number of aides to Republicans senators, co-author Frederick Liu found that there was a deliberate and concerted effort by Senate Republicans to avoid explicitly moralistic and religious arguments associated with the Religious Right.
One GOP legislative aide described her senator as "a religious man" whose opposition to gay marriage came first but who then "put words to it" afterwards that completely avoided any religious arguments.
Another legislative aide said his senator decided not to include in his floor statement references to "the Judeo-Christian tradition" that were in his original draft.
Yet another staff member acknowledged that her senator felt he could not reveal his religious reasons for opposing gay marriage for fear his constituents would view him as homophobic.
And what of Sen. Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum? Liu and Macedo report that even though Santorum was a fervent supporter of the amendment, the Senate GOP leadership decided not to have him be a lead sponsor, hoping thereby to evade the kind of criticism Santorum himself experienced.
In a way it is good news if nationally prominent politicians feel that they cannot with impunity directly attack gays and lesbians or even gay and lesbian relationships.
But there is a downside as well. If legislators - and voters - reach their positions about gay issues on the basis of a religious commitment but offer only what we might call "social policy" arguments for their positions, then any counter-arguments we make to refute or disprove those arguments will have no effect on their position.
The legislator, and supportive voters, are immune to counter-evidence because "evidence" was never the reason for their position in the first place. The legislator will simply repeat his argument so long as he thinks it sounds plausible and when that is no longer possible he will simply hunt around for some different "social policy" reason.
You can encounter the same problem in discussions with religious fundamentalists. One woman assured me once that homosexuality was obviously unnatural because even dumb animals didn't do it. When I listed a number of species in which homosexuality has been observed, she shot back, "Well, they're just dumb animals. What do they know?!" Evidence counted only when it supported what she already believed. Counter-evidence had no significance.
How we conduct our legislative lobbying and public discussion in light of this fact is a knotty problem, but being aware of it is a necessary beginning.