Unanimity About Same-Sex Marriage

Phil Lawler asks and answers a couple of questions arising from the "compromise" amendment in Massachusetts:

So you ask yourself: How did a majority of legislators support a measure that has no public backing? The answer to that one is easy: They're gutless, and they thought by temporizing they could dodge the issue entirely.

But then comes a second question: Why didn't the media notice, until days after the vote, that this proposed amendment is a dud? Then you realize: The media can't grasp why some people defend marriage and the family. It's all foreign territory to the reporters; they don't know the people and they don't know the terrain.

Another thing that this failure of understanding leads the media — and, consequently, many who argue the matter — to miss is that opponents of same-sex marriage are largely correct in their assessment of its supporters. It's just that the supporters rephrase the proof in terms of unreasonable discrimination. Consider:

In Vermont, the only state that currently grants civil unions, all state rights apply to same-sex couples, as they would under the Massachusetts proposal.

But because the federal government does not recognize civil unions, the couples lack a multitude of marriage benefits and responsibilities as stipulated in federal laws on everything from Social Security to immigration.

Exactly. They want actual marriage so that the federal government won't be able to differentiate, no matter what the majority of citizens says. The Massachusetts activists had their eye on this ball when they walked into court:

"The federal rights from marriage vary hugely," said Karen Loewy, a staff attorney with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. "They're all bread-and-butter issues that affect everyday life."

Loewy is one of five Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case that resulted in the court's ruling last November that same-sex couples have the right to marry in the state.

Goodridge wasn't meant to be about Massachusetts law. It's a wedge to get at federal law.

Not only does civil-union legislation deny same-sex couples federal marriage rights, it eliminates any possibility of seeking those rights, said Loewy, the GLAD lawyer.

At the federal level, she said, "everything's framed in terms of marriage." Because civil unions are not marriages, couples in civil unions have no legal recourse.

Precisely. If civil unions catch on, gay advocates will be left having to argue on the federal stage that civil unions ought to be treated as marriage. If marriage arises within a single state, the less visible path through the judiciary becomes available:

Currently, even if states allowed same-sex marriages, those marriages would not be recognized by the federal government. As a result of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed during the Clinton administration, federal law defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and gives states the right to ignore marriage licenses that other states issue to gay couples.

Here again, proponents of a federal marriage amendment are correct in their assessment of the other side; it's gunning for DOMA:

But those laws could change after gay marriages begin. Advocates on both sides of the debate say the Defense of Marriage Act probably would not hold up to a legal challenge.

Loewy said she believes married gay couples would eventually challenge and most likely defeat the federal marriage law, but added that she couldn't predict how long it would take. Massachusetts Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth, the author of one of three constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage that legislators defeated last month, also said "DOMA will fold."

Federalism, it is clear, is generally only held up as an ideal for the purpose of derailing social conservatives' counter-measures:

Almost four years [after entering into a civil union], [Sherry] Corbin, a spokeswoman for the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, wants her state to allow same-sex marriage. Her civil union, she said, is "worth absolutely nothing outside of Vermont." ...

Also, while marriage licenses in every state are virtually identical, because states other than Vermont lack civil-union mechanisms, the definition of "civil union" is hardly universal, said McCoy, the Vermont Public Health Statistics chief. He said Vermont could even decide not to recognize Massachusetts civil unions.

Haven't SSM advocates been touting the ability of one state to "decide not to recognize" marriage from another state? Yes, but it's still the case that, when it comes right down to it, each state's being able to decide for itself is a problem, not an opportunity for societal evolution, and the answer isn't to persuade the people of each state. The goal, after all, isn't really civil recognition and equal benefits under the law:

Another problem with civil unions, Loewy said, is that they don't receive the social acceptance of marriage. ...

Corbin said her civil union doesn't allow her to connect with the other married women in her family. The union, she said, doesn't carry the emotional weight of marriage.

They want for marriage laws to change opinions, not the other way around, which would be more appropriate — and more feasible. They want the government to grant something that it manifestly cannot, and that means that subsequent steps will have to be taken to knock over social, as opposed to civil, barriers to the intended cultural illusion that there's no difference between the marriages — no difference between men and women and the ways they interact. First, however, the window of time during which the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court has ensured that its dictated law would stand will enable claims that opponents of same-sex marriage were wrong in their fears:

Corbin, however, predicts that civil unions will never become a problem for Massachusetts. By the time the state is in a real position to ban gay marriage and create civil unions, she said, gay marriage will no longer be an issue.

Married gay couples will need only one year to convince the state that they pose no danger to the institution of marriage, she said.

"People are going to see that the sky isn't falling," she said.

Nobody has suggested that the social effects of same-sex marriage will be measurable within a year. Here again, though, opponents and proponents of the change agree, in that the public doesn't want to think about this issue and will be quick to wipe its collective brow and accept the status quo, whatever it is. I've said all along — and I continue to believe — that opposition to same-sex marriage will tend to increase with consideration, but that requires, well, consideration.

Forcing such broad social thinking is the central benefit of our slow, representative, legislative, federal system for the creation of laws. The judiciary is just too quick to ensure that detrimental emphases, or even wholly bad ideas, are weeded out from the worldviews of both sides.

And if same-sex marriages are so sure to win the approval of the people, why force them through the courts?

ADDENDUM:
There are, of course, individuals who don't align with the "Them," even though they take the same side in this struggle. However, a movement can't (and shouldn't) act against individuals, but only against another movement. Those individuals can fight to become representative, but before they can be taken as such, they actually have to be representative.