In responding to Jon Rauch and David Blankenhorn's proposal on DOMA, Maggie Gallagher makes two assertions about compromise that deserve discussion. First, she says that gay marriage proponents are successful enough that they don't really need to compromise ("I think the pro-marriage side is going to have to demonstrate an ongoing capacity to organize far more effectively before the gay-marriage juggernaut is going to be looking for a way to compromise."), and then says that it doesn't matter because gay rights groups don't show a willingness to compromise, anyway, so Congress and the President won't force one on them.
The first statement is no more than political rhetoric. A gay marriage "juggernaut?" Is there some wave of gay marriage laws getting passed that I've missed? I've seen political figures talk down their own success before, but this sets some kind of new standard for tactical overpraise of the opposition.
The second assertion, though, is even more canny. It's the old unilateral disarmament argument, fashionably retooled. The other side has to go first, and since I know they won't, I'll be damned if I'll give up my nukes and then live at their mercy.
It is exactly this mindset the proposal is designed to address. No one here actually has anything nuclear. The right continually says that they are worried about gay marriage's potential infringement on religious liberty. In Hawaii this week, the thousands of people demonstrating against a civil unions bill were virtually all, proudly religious believers worried about having to "force churches to lend out their facilities," and "open up a Pandora's Box of legal suits." The compromise takes that concern seriously, and says that no state civil union bill can get federal recognition unless it guarantees that churches will not have to recognize the relationships.
But it also takes seriously the concerns of same-sex couples, who, in most states, have no rights as couples at all. As is true of most compromises, it involves both sides to give a little. It provides that if gays can get a state to recognize their relationships - and it does not require any state to do that - then the federal government - which includes elected representatives from that state whose citizens are affected - will follow suit. As just one example of the problems the status quo causes, same-sex married couples in Massachusetts must now file two sets of income tax returns: one for Massachusetts, as a married couple, and one different set for the federal government, which requires them to identify themselves as unrelated individuals because DOMA requires the federal government to blind itself to any lawful same-sex relationships.
More important even than this, the compromise addresses voters who support neither gay marriage nor a total gay marriage ban. Unlike the absolutists on either end of the spectrum, there are a large number of Americans who understand both the concerns of religious believers and same-sex couples, and think both should be given some legal effect. It is safe to say - and Rauch and Blankenhorn do - that this compromise will not make any extremists happy. But that's a truism about compromise - it is, in fact, the definition of what a compromise is.
I cannot speak for any gay rights organization, and I would expect that Maggie is right they will oppose this compromise as she does. But compromises aren't for the ideologues, they're for the rest of us. The test of a compromise is whether it appeals to the middle. And, ultimately, that is how we'll know whether this one succeeds or not.
One Comment for “Thoughs on Compromise”
posted by John D on
I am willing to take the concerns of the opponents to same-sex marriage seriously, even though I think their every last concern is not only unfounded but that they know it.
Let’s grant them the benefit of the doubt. And effect a compromise.
We get the right, throughout the United States, to get legal marriage licenses, issued in the same manner in which opposite-sex couples are issued them.
In return, I think we can freely offer the following. Since the claim is that same-sex marriage will violate religious liberty, I would like to propose the Religious Freedom of Conscience Act, which would stipulate the already existing right of any member of the clergy to refuse to officiate at a wedding for whatever reason.