IGF CultureWatch

The New York Times' William Safire weighs in On Same Sex Marriage. It's sort of a "coming to terms" piece, but he's getting there.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, William Raspberry is prepared to embrace same-sex marriage, then reads "queer" leftwing polemicist Michael Warner's screed against Andrew Sullivan, marriage, and the danger of gay life becoming "normal":

"As long as people marry," [Warner] says, "the state will continue to regulate the sexual lives of those who do not marry. It will continue to refuse to recognize our intimate relations -- including cohabiting partnerships -- as having the same rights or validity as a married couple. It will criminalize our consensual sex."

Fortunately, Raspberry maintains his composure and winds up still favoring same-sex marriage. The queer left -- if it didn't exist, the religious right would have to invent it!

Anti-gay social and religious conservatives are now split between those who favor amending the U.S. Constitution to forbid same-sex marriage while allowing states to grant lesser civil unions and domestic partnerships, and those who seek to bar any recognition of same-sex couples, even if it makes it much harder to pass an amendment. Writes the Washington Post's Alan Coooperman ("Opponents of Gay Marriage Divided"):

Although they are early in the process of trying to win a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, some conservatives worry that the political clock is ticking and the drive to amend the Constitution will be doomed unless they can reach consensus.

This isn't what was suppose to happen. A few months ago when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist came out in favor of the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, it was assumed that the move would unite the GOP in support while dividing Democrats -- with the Demo's liberal base opposing an amendment but more moderate factions favoring it. That hasn't happened (aside from support for the amendment from some African-American ministers). All of the Democratic candidates for president have taken positions against an amendment. Meanwhile, conservatives have split over whether there even should be an amendment, and if so how far it should go. Writes popular conservative pundit George Will in his Nov. 30 column:

Amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would be unwise for two reasons. Constitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law. And it would be especially imprudent to end state responsibility for marriage law at a moment when we require evidence of the sort that can be generated by allowing the states to be laboratories of social policy.

The same day, conservative Jonah Goldberg writes in his column:

The FMA [Federal Marriage Amendment] would ban same-sex marriage "or the legal incidents thereof" -- which many take to mean civil unions as well -- in all 50 states for all time.

That may sound like a good idea if you're against same-sex marriage, civil unions, and all the rest. But to me it sounds an awful lot like a replay of Prohibition. "[T]he FMA will not make this issue go away. Rather, it will more likely serve to radicalize the anti-FMA forces in much the same way Roe v. Wade radicalized antiabortion forces.

So the push to rewrite the Constitution is turning out to be a divisive issue in the Republican camp -- not at all what party leaders expected.

More Recent Postings

11/23/03 - 11/29/03

Little noted outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, this week marked the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor and gay rights pioneer was gunned down in his office on November 27, 1978. I suspect Milk would be amazed if he were to return today and witness the advances in the struggle for gay equality and dignity achieved in the quarter century since his death.

The Perils of One-Party Partisanship.

Former Massachusetts governor William Weld, a fiscally conservative/socially inclusive Republican, says he'd like to officiate at a gay wedding, the Boston Globe reports. Meanwhile, the state's current GOP governor, Mitt Romney, and Democratic attorney general, Tom Reilly, oppose the ruling by their state's Supreme Judicial Court that the commonwealth may not "deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry."

Without Weld's appointments to Massachusetts' highest court, it's unlikely the ruling would have come down in favor of the gay plaintiffs. In 1990, Weld beat homophobic Democrat John Silber in the governor's race. Had Silber won, he would not have appointed gay-supportive judges. Interestingly, despite his strong opposition to gay rights (which is still ongoing), gay establishment groups and liberal Congressman Barney Frank supported Silber in 1990 for the sake of partisan unity.

The Queen Speaks.

From last week's address by Queen Elizabeth to parliament, outlining Tony Blair's agenda for the coming session:

My government will maintain its commitment to increased equality and social justice by bringing forward legislation on the registration of civil partnerships between same sex couples.

The Labour government's proposal, which enjoys support from the opposition Conservatives (Tories) and will become law within two years, allows gay and lesbian couples to register their unions as civil partnerships, granting virtually all the rights enjoyed by married couples in the United Kingdom.

(A pdf of the Labour government's report on the proposal is available online, but may take several minutes to download.)

Hypocrisy Watch.

Froma Harrop, writing in the Providence Journal (free, fast registration required), notes that if conservatives really wanted to shore up marriage, they'd tackle the culture of divorce. But of course, since so many are themselves divorced, that might not be so appealing. Harrop writes:

Georgia ("the buckle of the Bible Belt") sent twice-divorced, thrice-married Bob Barr [author of the Defense of Marriage Act] to Congress -- and as a sermonizing conservative. Another divorced Georgia Republican, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was plotting to dump his second wife while lecturing on the decline of American civilization. The late Sonny Bono, a rock star turned GOP conservative, had fathered four children by three of his four wives. He also condemned gay marriage as a threat to the family.

And it's not all Republicans. Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat, had broken up his own marriage, then accused Bill Clinton of setting a bad example for his children.

As President Bush has said, "I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own."

As I noted earlier,
New York Times columnist David Brooks supports gay marriage but takes liberals to task for too-often framing their argument in terms of opening up access to "a really good employee benefits plan." The problem with that approach is demonstrated by social conservative Maggie Gallagher, a strong opponent of same-sex matrimony, who argues in the Weekly Standard ("Massachusetts vs. Marriage"):

For many same-sex-marriage advocates, marriage is basically a legal ceremony that confers legal benefits, a rite that gives rise to rights.

But, she counters, the governmental benefits bestowed by marriage (e.g., tax breaks, social security inheritance, etc.) are being overstated by gay advocates. Moreover, she thinks that civil unions may be a compromise worth accepting, precisely because marriage confers dignity upon a relationship and civil unions don't:

What some dismiss as protecting "merely" the word marriage is actually 90 percent of the loaf. -- Capturing the word is the key to deconstructing the institution. "

Do not mistake me: In the long run, I believe that creating legal alternatives to marriage is counterproductive and wrong. But civil unions are one unwise step down a path away from a marriage culture. Gay marriage is the end of the road. "

To lose the word "marriage" is to lose the core idea any civilization needs to perpetuate itself and to protect its children. It means exposing our children to a state-endorsed and state-promoted new vision of unisex marriage. It means losing the culture of marriage. And there would be nothing noble about that at all.

IGF contributing author Andrew Sullivan, on the other hand, does "get" that dignity for gay people is what's at stake, not just legal benefits -- and that's precisely why the religious right is so intent on denying us the "m" word. His column in the current New Republic makes this clear:

If the social right wanted to shore up marriage, they could propose an amendment tightening divorce laws. They could unveil any number of proposals for ensuring that children have stable two-family homes, that marriage-lite versions of marriage are prevented or discouraged. But they haven't.

[The Federal Marriage Amendment] is simply -- and baldly -- an attempt to ostracize a minority of Americans for good. ... It is one of the most divisive amendments ever proposed -- an attempt to bring the culture war into the fabric of the very founding document, to create division where we need unity, exclusion where we need inclusion, rigidity where we need flexibility. And you only have to read it to see why.

I have expressed the view that civil unions may be an appropriate short-term goal on the way to full marriage for gays and lesbians -- a means of allowing fair-minded straight Americans to get comfortable with the idea of state-recognition for same-sex relationships. And, in fact, this is exactly what happened in The Netherlands -- separate-track civil unions were eventually followed by full marriage for gay couples. But reading Gallagher, in particular, I can see why Sullivan and others insist that any arrangement short of marriage is not acceptable.

If you have thoughts you'd like to share with other readers about civil unions or rev'd up domestic parternships versus marriage as a short- or long-term objective, feel free to drop us a letter at the IGF Mailbag.

The Next Generation.

Jamie Kirchick, a Yale undergrad, campus columnist, and IGF contributing author, has a new blog. Check it out.

Two new polls released last Sunday show just about half of Massachusetts voters agree with the ruling by their highest court that the state's ban same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, while around 38% are opposed to gay marriage. That makes it a lot more difficult for anti-gay activists to charge that gay marriage is being forced on an unwilling populace.

Still, a recent nationwide survey shows that 59% oppose gay marriage while 32% favor it. Which is why it's not surprising, just disappointing, that the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution now has over 100 bipartisan sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the very anti-gay (but extremely multicultural) Alliance For Marriage.

Some good news: A few more straight conservatives are making the case for same-sex marriage. I particularly liked this piece from the right-leaning New York Sun, by R.H. Sager, who writes: "Marriage is a contract, it's a choice, it encourages stability. Conservatives like all of those things. Why not extend the institution?"

Moreover, other prominent conservative who haven't been stellar on matters of gay equality are now touting civil unions as an acceptable compromise, including Jonah Goldberg. He gets off this sharp observation:

It's a funny stalemate. The Republicans can't afford to be seen as too "anti-gay," lest the Democrats demagogue them with tolerant suburban voters, and Democrats can't afford to be seen as too "pro-gay" lest the GOP demagogue them in Southern and rural states. So both sides stand there, circling each other like sumo wrestlers, hoping the other side will make the first move.

And still other pundits of the right have come out against the Federal Marriage Amendment, including George Will and David Horowitz. Whether such defections will be enough to stall the support for amending the Constitution during the coming election year is as yet unknown.

The Marriage Ruling &

More Recent Postings

11/16/03 - 11/22/03

David Brooks, a fair-minded conservative who's now a columnist for the New York Times, penned this op-ed on The Power of Marriage. Taking a swipe at fellow conservatives, Brooks admonishes:

The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.

And, taking a swipe at liberals, he declares:

When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote. Marriage is not voting.

Straight conservatives who support gay marriage -- now that's a force to be reckoned with!

Liberals for Undermining Traditional Marriage?

On the other hand, do we really benefit from arguments like Sociologist Says Gay Marriage Does Threaten Established Order, and That's Good?

Meanwhile, in a show of support for heterosexual marriage, both Menendez brothers have now gotten married while in prison for killing their parents.
--Stephen H. Miller

"This May Be Good for Marriage" writes liberal syndicated columnist Richard Cohen:

Now along come gay couples to rescue marriage from social and economic irrelevance, casting a queer eye on a straight institution. They seek it for pecuniary reasons -- issues such as estate taxes, etc. -- but also because they seem to be among the last romantics. (No shotgun marriages here.) The odd thing about the opposition to gay marriage is that if the opponents were not so blinded by bigotry and fear, they would see that gay men and lesbians provide the last, best argument for marriage: love and commitment.

Libertarian-minded columnist Steve Chapman argues that "Freedom Evolves in Surprising Ways":

When John Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, which historian David McCullough says is "the oldest functioning written constitution in the world," he couldn't have dreamed it would someday be interpreted to sanction homosexual partnerships. At the time, Massachusetts made sodomy punishable by death. These days, however, not much is banned in Boston, or most other venues. --

On this and other activities once stigmatized as sinful, Americans are generally inclined to let freedom ring, even if they don't always like the results. John Adams and his fellow founders would be surprised, but when you decide to protect the pursuit of happiness, there's just no telling where it will lead.

On the other hand, fumes religious rightist Cal Thomas, the Massachusetts ruling:

...is further evidence that G.K. Chesterton's warning has come true: "The danger when men stop believing in God is not that they'll believe in nothing, but that they'll believe in anything."

Marriage was not invented by the Postal Service as a convenient way to deliver the mail. It was established by God as the best arrangement for fallen humanity to organize and protect itself and create and rear children. Even secular sociologists have produced studies showing children need a mother and a father in the home.

And, perhaps striving to be "fair and balanced," conservative Bill O'Reilly told his Fox News audience:

Personally I couldn't care less about gay marriage. If Tommy and Vinny or Joanie and Samantha want to get married, I don't see it as a threat to me or anybody else. But according to a poll by the Pew Research Center, only 32 percent of Americans favor gay marriage. And the will of the people must be taken into account here.

Some are predicting the culture war over gay marriage will become more heated than the abortion fight. Others say that aside from the religious right and the gay community, most Americans are just not emotionally invested in the issue. Keeping an eye on our national pundits will be one way to gauge if that's so.

Law professor Dale Carpenter, an IGF contributing author, answered questions from USA Today readers about what might happen next in light of the Massachusetts marriage ruling, and the transcript can be read online.

Also, IGF co-managing editor Jon Rauch takes part in an online debate over the ruling, hosted on The New Republic's website.

The AP reports: "Massachusetts' highest court ruled Tuesday that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution, but stopped short of allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the couples who challenged the law." (The entire opinion, including the dissent, is available online.)

Meanwhile, the AP continues, "The Massachusetts question will now return to the Legislature, which already is considering a constitutional amendment that would legally define a marriage as a union between one man and one woman." The state's powerful Speaker of the House, Democrat Tom Finneran of Boston, has endorsed the proposal. And so has GOP Governor Mitt Romney.

The worst outcome: Massachusetts amends its state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, and the ruling gives a huge push to efforts to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment now in Congress, which would amend the U.S. Constitution in the same permanently restrictive manner.
[Update: Given that it can take up to two years to amend the Bay State's constitution, expect opponents to put their effforts into amending the federal Constitution.]

The best outcome: Massachusetts passes a civil unions bill along the lines of Vermont's, granting same-sex couples all the state-granted benefits of marriage, and this passes muster with the Massachusetts courts.

Do I want gays to have the right to marry in the fullest sense. Yes! Do I think that, given the current political climate, court-decreed same-sex marriage will be overturned by elected legislatures and create a groundswell of reaction? Yes again. To paraphrase, "It's the 'M' word, stupid!"

The big picture. In the great, ongoing battle between conservatism and progressivism (ok, one could even say "dialectic," if you must), both sides hold a part of the truth. Conservatives aren't just reactionary nabobs; the truth they hold is that there are some essentials that, if tampered with, lead to chaos (e.g., the folly of "rational" socialism, which sought to replace age-old markets with central planning, and produced tyranny and poverty). Progressives, on the other hand, hew to the truth that times change and if society doesn't evolve to provide human beings with greater liberty and dignity, it will become corrupt and atrophy.

The American revolution was progressivism at its best; the French (Russian, Chinese, etc.) revolutions were progressivism at its worst, and showed the value in the conservatives' worldview ("go slow, don't alter the fundamentals, or at least be exceedingly wary about doing so").

Here we have two "truths," at war with each other. Right now, despite the rulings of some liberal justices, the nation is clearly not yet convinced that same-sex marriage wouldn't destroy an essential bedrock and lead to social breakdown. The best way to demonstrate that, on the contrary, it would be the sort of "good" progress that advances humanity is to let people get used to civil unions on a state by state level, starting where support for gay rights is already high.

Will liberal activists use the courts to overreach and produce a backlash that will set back gay marriage for a generation or more? Or am I being overly cautious and not giving enough credit to the cultural changes that have already taken root in this country? We'll soon see.

Wrong About Everything?

There were two declarations this past week from the nation's Roman Catholic bishops, as summarized in the following headlines:

• 
  
• U.S. Catholic Bishops Move to Reinforce Ban on Birth Control
• 
  
• Catholic Bishops Oppose Legalizing Gay Marriage

Guess which declaration is going to be given major play by conservatives (hint: it's not the one that might interfere with their personal lives!).

More Recent Postings

11/09/03 - 11/15/03

If nothing else, the pressure to hold up the promotion of Maj. Gen. Robert T. Clark to lieutenant general and commander of the Fifth Army, over charges that he ignored persistent anti-gay harassment on a base where a fatal gay bashing occurred in 1999, sends a strong message to the military. As the Washington Blade reports:

Gay groups have said Clark's inattention to anti-gay harassment at the base contributed to an atmosphere that led to the gay-bashing death of Pfc. Barry Winchell, 21. -- [The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network] has pointed to witnesses who testified"that Winchell had been subjected to anti-gay taunts and threats on the base for several months prior to the attack that led to his death. The witnesses testified that officers in charge of Winchell's unit failed to take steps to stop the harassment and that Clark should have intervened to address the harassment problem.

Clark will most likely get his promotion, but the months-long delay should put other military commanders on notice: tolerating attacks against gay servicemembers can be a bad career move.

[Update: On Nov. 18 the Seante approved Gen. Clark's promotion, but the vote represented (in the words of the Washington Blade) "a break from a longstanding Senate tradition of approving promotions for military officers by unanimous consent, without debate." Said an SLDN spokesperson, "Despite the disappointing vote, it's reassuring that we had an historic debate holding Gen. Clark accountable for his actions."]

Meanwhile, the rabidly anti-gay Traditional Values Coalition is running this delightful little piece on its website, Exposed: The Truth About Pfc. Barry Winchell. Could the culture wars get any uglier?